


Revelation

by Melyanna (darthmelyanna)



Series: west-gate: A West Wing/Stargate Crossover [2]
Category: Stargate Atlantis, The West Wing
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Crossover, and there are flashbacks, in which the stargate is disclosed, late season 7 TWW AU, post-season 1 SGA
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-26
Updated: 2019-01-30
Packaged: 2019-09-26 20:56:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 11
Words: 47,860
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17148953
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/darthmelyanna/pseuds/Melyanna
Summary: When Danny Concannon uncovers the truth about the Stargate, Josiah Bartlet makes his final act as president the disclosure of the gate to the world.





	1. Chapter 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This story was written before I'd seen much of the last two seasons of The West Wing (and might have been written before they aired—yikes, that was a long time ago). As such, basically none of the major character events from that show's last couple seasons actually factor into this fic. This particularly affects Donna, Toby, and Josh, who are still in the White House during the events of this one. I mean nothing for or against those arcs; I just hadn't seen them when I wrote this.

CJ had to give him credit. Danny Concannon hadn’t won a Pulitzer for nothing, and he was well on his way to his second right now.

“It’s all there,” he was saying. “I gotta say, the cover story you came up with was a lot better than the Air Force story.”

“Yeah, well, they’re the ones who say that alien bodies recovered at Roswell were anthropomorphic dummies,” CJ replied, leafing through a few pages. “I’ve had a lot of experience lying to you. This wasn’t hard.”

“Still, telling me Elizabeth was off trying to convince North Korea not to sell nuclear technology to the highest bidder,” Danny continued. “Not bad for government work.”

“Yeah, I’m thinking of going pro in the next draft.”

“So what do you have to say?”

CJ flipped the folder closed and sat back. “Well, this is a whole new thing now, isn’t it?”

“Pretty much,” Danny replied. “It’s the fourth of November. The election’s in three days, and I’m pretty sure you want me to hold this longer than that.”

“You know me so well.”

“I’ve had the privilege of being here before.” He twirled his pen around before tapping it on his notepad. “So what do I get?”

“I’ll have to talk to the president before I’m anywhere close to answering that.” She stood up, intending to head into the Oval Office, but paused. “Just out of curiosity…”

“What did I think when I figured it all out?”

“Yeah,” said CJ. “And not your reporter reaction. Your reaction.”

To her surprise, Danny smiled. “I thought it was pretty cool.”

“Okay.” She headed to the door. “I’ll be right back.”

She passed through the heavy doors that separated her office from the Oval. Going from one to the other was like night and day. Seated behind his massive desk, the president was writing something. “Mr. President?” she said.

“CJ,” he replied. “You got something?”

“Yes, sir,” she said. “We’ve got a bit of a situation.”

* * *

When John Sheppard’s team returned to Atlantis, it was morning in the city. It was strange, really. He’d never been a morning person on Earth, but in Atlantis, he rarely wanted to sleep through a minute of it. There was something exceptionally beautiful about this place, something that spoke to him—a higher purpose, and he couldn’t bring himself to sleep through it if he didn’t have to.

Elizabeth was not waiting for him on the balcony when he stepped through the gate, which was a little unusual. He tried to act casually about it, but figured he was taking the steps up to the control room faster than normal. It must have been very early in the morning, though, because the control room was almost empty. A few technicians manned consoles, and a young officer stood up at John entered the room. “At ease, Captain,” he said.

Captain Cho relaxed. “How was M78-4X2, sir?”

“Windy,” John replied. “Everything still standing here?”

“As far as I know,” Cho answered. “Colonel Caldwell and Dr. Weir would be able to brief you more fully, of course.”

“Yeah, where is she?” John asked, unclipping his P-90. “Thought she would have been around here by now.”

“Dr. Beckett said she needed a break,” said the captain. “Told her not to come in to work today.”

“When’s the graveyard shift over?”

“Two hours, sir.”

John ran his free hand through his hair. “Well, I’m going to stow my gear,” he said. “I’ll call my team back for debriefing once Colonel Caldwell’s in.”

“Yes, sir.”

He did head to the armory and get rid of his weapons, but that wasn’t his real destination. It was just on the way to Elizabeth’s room, a room which, for the last fifteen months, he’d slept in more than his own. But he was still hesitant to refer to it as their room, despite keeping a lot of clothes in there.

At her door, he punched in his security code, and the door slid open. The room was dark, but he could make out Elizabeth’s form. She was sleeping on her side, a stuffed animal tucked under her arm. John smiled. He’d bought that for her the last time he was on Earth, but he didn’t know she slept with it when he was gone.

Carefully, quietly, John crossed the room and sat on the edge of the bed. He leaned down and kissed her temple, then whispered, “Elizabeth.”

His hand hovered near her face. She inhaled deeply through her nose and smiled sleepily. “Morning, stranger,” she said.

“Morning, beautiful,” he replied.

She rolled onto her back, her hair landing in every direction, making her look almost wanton. John loved seeing her like this in the mornings. “Are you back early?” she asked.

“No, right on schedule,” John replied. He kissed her nose. “You’re just sleeping later than usual.”

Elizabeth reached up and ran her fingers through his hair. By reflex his eyes closed. “That’s because Carson gave me something,” she said.

“To help you sleep?”

“Yes. I didn’t want it, but…”

“Sometimes you hardly sleep at all.” John opened his eyes. “I know.”

She sat up then and pushed her hair out of her face, hair she’d been growing out since he’d confessed to her late one night that he wondered what it looked like longer. She leaned toward him then and kissed the side of his neck, her breath warm and her lips soft. Oh yes. He loved her in the mornings.

One slender hand ran up his chest and turned his face toward her. But she didn’t say anything, so he touched her shoulder, then her neck, and brushed his mouth against hers. He sensed rather than saw her smile, so he kissed her again. A long time passed before he reluctantly pulled away enough to speak. “Missed this,” he said. “Missed you.” That was the closest he would come to that other phrase, the one he wanted desperately to say, but sensed she wasn’t ready for.

“You must not have enough to do on missions,” she teased. John smiled despite himself. “Yet you still need a shower.”

“Hey, I just got back,” he protested. “I haven’t even changed.”

“I can tell.” Elizabeth rested her head on his shoulder anyway, so he figured the smell must not have been that bad. “How long till the next shift starts?”

“Little under two hours,” John replied. “Plenty of time for me to shower.”

She hummed in agreement. “I think I could take a bubble bath before either of us has anywhere to be.”

“I’ll watch,” he said, gently tickling her ribs.

She swatted his hand away. But before she could protest, an alarm sounded, and Captain Cho’s voice filled the room. “Unscheduled off-world activation!”

John jumped up from the bed so Elizabeth could toss the covers aside and grab her headset from the night stand. While she put it on, he headed to her closet and pulled clothes out for her. “Captain Cho,” she said, “what’s the situation?”

“I’m sorry to disturb you, ma’am,” he replied. “The gate fired up and then shut down.”

Elizabeth frowned as John tossed a shirt at her. “Were there any transmissions?”

“Uh… Yes, ma’am. With an IDC.” There was a long pause. “It’s Earth, ma’am. It’s General Landry’s IDC.”

In the darkened room, Elizabeth met his gaze. “Get McKay or Zelenka down there to decrypt it,” she said. “And page Colonel Caldwell. Tell him I want to see him in my office at his earliest convenience.”

“Yes, ma’am. Cho out.”

Elizabeth pulled her headset off and tossed it to the bed. “I hate to harp on this, but…”

“Shower?”

“Yes.”

He grinned and kissed her. “I’ll be right behind you.”

* * *

Elizabeth was the second one to make it to the control room; Zelenka was already there. “Radek,” she said, “how’s it going?”

“Good,” he replied. “The transmission was compressed, but not heavily encrypted. Am simply waiting on the computer.”

Elizabeth nodded. “Let me know when it’s done.”

She headed into her office, wishing she’d had time to wash her hair before coming up here. But it hadn’t been critical, and this might be. They had scheduled contacts with Earth, especially now that they’d found a second ZPM, so it was a rare event indeed that Earth rang their doorbell.

She picked up her notepad and started leafing through recent reports, and a few minutes later her office door slid open. She looked up to see Colonel Caldwell. “Doctor,” he said, “I thought Beckett told you to take a day off.”

“Well, it’s not every day that Earth calls us, Steven,” she replied. “I figured this was worth risking Carson’s wrath.”

The colonel smiled. The amusing nature of Carson Beckett’s reign over all matters medical was one of the earliest things they had agreed upon. At the time there had been so much that they argued about that it surprised them both when they burst into laughter after one of Carson’s panicked assessments.

Of course, their alliance now was still tenuous at best. There were many things the two of them were still at odds over, and the biggest one of all was walking through the door. “Colonel,” John said, nodding to Caldwell. “Elizabeth, what’s going on?”

“We’re waiting on Zelenka to finish decompressing the message.”

And behind John, Zelenka entered the office. “Dr. Weir?” he said.

“Yes, Radek?”

“The message was from the White House Chief of Staff,” he replied. “President Bartlet wants you to contact Earth at your earliest convenience. He wants to speak with you. All three of you.”

“Well, I think this is our earliest convenience,” Elizabeth said. “Let’s call the home store.”

Zelenka nodded and left. While the gate activated just outside, Elizabeth pulled a small radio from her desk, along with her GDO. As soon as the wormhole had established, she punched in her IDC.

They only had to wait a few seconds for a response. “Dr. Weir,” General Landry said, “how are things in Atlantis?”

“It’s all quiet here, General,” Elizabeth replied. “I understand the president wanted to speak to us. Is he at Cheyenne Mountain?”

“No, he’s in Washington,” Landry said. “We’ve rigged something up so you can talk with him in the White House Situation Room. I’d explain how, but I don’t really understand it myself.”

Elizabeth laughed. “That’s all right, sir. I probably wouldn’t either.”

They waited for a little while, as someone was presumably getting the president to the sit room. Elizabeth and Caldwell chatted patiently with Landry, and John tried not to fidget too much. Then they heard a sudden burst of static, and someone said, “Ten hut!”

Elizabeth suppressed a small smile as both John and Steven straightened by reflex. “Gentlemen,” she heard the president say, “what have you got?”

“We have Atlantis on a secure line,” said another disembodied voice.

“Excellent!” Elizabeth glanced up and saw a surprised look on Caldwell’s face. Clearly, he’d never met Josiah Bartlet. “Dr. Weir, you there?”

“Hello, Mr. President,” she replied. “Greetings from the Pegasus galaxy.”

“I gotta say, it’s a little surreal to be talking to someone in another galaxy.”

“Well, sir,” said Elizabeth, “just imagine being in one.”

He chuckled. “Who’s with you, Elizabeth?”

“Colonels Caldwell and Sheppard.”

“Colonel Caldwell,” the president said. “We haven’t met, but I’ve heard a lot of good things about you.”

“Thank you, sir,” Caldwell replied.

“And John, are you staying away from really big bugs?”

John rolled his eyes, but smiled. “As much as I can, sir.”

“Excellent. Let’s get to business.” He paused. “I need you to come back to Earth, Elizabeth.”

She was silent for a moment, as John’s hand froze on the jar on her desk. “Sir?” she finally managed.

“We’re disclosing Stargate Command,” Bartlet repeated. “I need you and Colonel Sheppard to return to Earth. I’ve promised Danny Concannon interviews.”

“He figured it out?” John asked, lifting the lid from the jar.

Elizabeth grabbed the lid from him and replaced it as Bartlet spoke. “Yeah, he did. I don’t know how he managed to write anything else over the last fifteen months. His sources are pretty incredible.”

“Well, sir,” Elizabeth said, “Danny’s always been very good at his job.”

“You’re telling me.”

“Sir,” John asked, “what’s the timing on this?”

“The election’s in three days,” the president said. “We’re not going to break for a couple weeks.”

“Then why are you calling them back now, sir?” Caldwell asked.

There was an awkward pause. “Elizabeth, this isn’t my only reason for getting you back to Earth.”

She stared at the radio for a confused moment, before realization dawned and her eyes widened. “It’s about my father, isn’t it?” she asked.

“I’m sorry, Elizabeth,” the president replied. “I have some bad news.”


	2. Chapter 2

_Bartlet Congressional Offices  
Sixteen years earlier_

It had been a long day, and Congressman Jed Bartlet was beginning to hate the telephone more than usual. But as usual, that was his own fault.

Nearly three days had passed since he walked into the well of the House chamber and given a speech that he’d known was going to be inflammatory. Abbey had given him that look she used when she was questioning his sanity, but he’d ignored it. He’d ignored hints from the chairman of the foreign relations committee too, from the majority leader, and from his own aides. But the situation in El Salvador now was too much for him to ignore. So he’d given an impassioned argument for the use of military force to right any humanitarian wrong in the world. Now he was starting to think it was one of the dumbest decisions he’d ever made.

There came a knock at the door. “Yeah,” he said, turning a page in the memo he was reading.

“Congressman Bartlet?”

Jed looked up to see the door opening. “What is it, Mrs. Landingham?”

“A representative from the Council for Global Peace is here to see you,” the secretary replied. “She’s here without an appointment, but she asked if she could see you if you had a spare minute.”

“Right, because a lobbyist is exactly the kind of person I want to see right now.” He sighed and looked down at his desk. “I think I just want to go home.”

“Congressman,” she replied, “she was very polite about it.”

His secretary rarely overrode him in matters like these, so Jed started to wonder if it would be worthwhile. And, well, civility was never a bad thing in this kind of situation. So he nodded. “Show her in.”

Mrs. Landingham stepped out of the doorway and looked over her shoulder, beckoning in a woman he probably would have found attractive in his youth, a tall and very pretty brunette. She also seemed very young to be doing this job.

“Congressman Bartlet, this is Elizabeth Weir,” Mrs. Landingham said, before stepping out and closing the door behind her.

Jed came around his desk and extended his hand. “Ms. Weir,” he said.

She had a strong handshake, he noted. “Please, Congressman, call me Elizabeth,” she replied. “And I must say, it’s an honor. I’ve wanted to meet you for quite some time.”

“Well, I hope I can live up to expectations, then,” he said, a little amused. He gestured to a chair. “So you’re here to deliver the condemnation of the Council for Global Peace?”

“No, sir, I’m just here to talk.”

He raised a brow and sat across from her. “That doesn’t sound like the CGP’s style.”

“Well, their style hasn’t worked on you very often before,” Elizabeth replied, smiling wryly. “So they told me to come and talk.”

“Then we’re in luck. Talking is what I’m best at.” He reached over to his desk and picked up the file that held the speech. “You seem familiar.”

“You’ve probably met my father,” the young woman replied.

Jed stared at her for a moment longer. “The Secretary of Housing and Urban Development,” he said. “You’re William Weir’s daughter?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Then what are you doing with the Council for Global Peace?” he asked. “Surely Secretary Weir could set you up in the State Department if you wanted.”

“I’m sure he could have, Congressman,” she said. “But I didn’t want him to. I’d rather be working for a group like the CGP.”

“Why?” At her puzzled look, Jed added, “I’m just curious.”

She sighed a little. “I’ve been watching politics from the government side for a long time now,” she replied. “I wanted to see the lobbyist’s side of the story.”

“And how are you finding it?”

“It’s interesting,” Elizabeth said. “It’s good work, and it’s a relief to be around people who are really passionate about their cause.”

Jed sat back and raised a brow. “You saying the government isn’t?”

She laughed just a little. “No, sir,” she replied. “Just that the government can get bogged down in procedure sometimes. Of course, sometimes procedure is a good thing. Sometimes it’s the only thing that keeps things civilized in the House.”

Jed watched her carefully, a little impressed at how she steered the conversation back to the subject. William Weir had the same gift for guiding people to the point he wanted to reach. “Like listening to a committee chair who’s telling you you don’t know a thing about foreign policy?”

“Sir, I mean no disrespect, but it’s not your area at all,” Elizabeth replied. “New Hampshire politicians don’t often deal with foreign policy.”

“That shouldn’t matter,” he said, getting up to walk behind his desk. “They’re killing innocent people down there. To sit back and do nothing—”

“Is unconscionable,” she finished for him. When he looked at her in surprise, she added, “I happen to agree with you to a point. It’s a human rights nightmare.”

“Want a drink?” Jed asked, opening a cabinet.

“No, thank you.”

“Okay.” He pulled out a glass and a bottle, and poured himself a drink. “So what don’t you agree with?”

She regarded him carefully as he came back to his seat. “I think you know, sir.”

“The use of force.”

“Yes.” Elizabeth paused, as though collecting her thoughts. “I find it difficult to articulate this.”

“I find that difficult to believe.”

She smiled wryly. “I’ll take that as a compliment.”

“Elizabeth, think of it this way,” Jed replied, bringing the conversation back. “If your child were in this kind of danger, you’d do anything to save him. If one of my daughters were down there, I’d be screaming for someone to do _anything_ to save her, and it wouldn’t matter to me that it’d require military force.”

“And if one of your children were murdered, you’d want the criminal to die painfully and slowly, despite your position on the death penalty,” she said, not in the least intimidated. “That’s why we have limits on who gets to make these kinds of decisions. Fathers of victims don’t get to decide the punishments of those criminals.”

He knew that argument was coming. “I’m not a father of these victims,” he said.

She smiled again. “No, but you asked me to put myself in the shoes of a parent of one of these victims,” she replied. “Yes, it’s an outrage. Yes, someone has to do something. But I’m not convinced it should be us, or that it should be militarily. The imposition of American values across the globe—”

“I didn’t advocate imposition of anything—”

“I’m sorry, sir, but you did,” she interrupted. After holding his gaze for a moment, she reached into her briefcase and pulled out a few sheets of paper. “‘America needs a new doctrine for a new century, based not just on our interests, but on our values, across the world,’” she read. “‘We are for freedom of speech everywhere. Freedom to worship everywhere. Freedom to learn for every child. And freedom from the tyranny of oppression, economic slavery, religious fanaticism.’” She skimmed down the page for a moment. “‘It is our duty to give more than merely our support. We must give our strength diplomatically, materially, and if need be, militarily.’”

“Rather nicely worded, if you ask me,” he suggested.

“Well, it is better than most floor speeches I read,” she replied. “Though I doubt this is playing well in Mecca.”

“That’s what this is about?” Jed asked, a little surprised. “The Middle East?”

“That’s one of many problems. If we start interfering whenever our values are compromised, then there are several regimes in the Middle East that are going to get twitchy.” She frowned again. “But that doesn’t address the fundamental problem with it. Say we intervene militarily in El Salvador. We leave, and the void we just created makes room for a dictator who’s worse. We have to intervene again. And again, and again, and again. We save a few lives, perhaps, but we just perpetuate the problem until El Salvador is little more than our colony.”

“Are those lives not worth saving?”

“They are, sir,” she said, carefully, “but you haven’t given them freedom. You’ve exchanged one master for another.” Elizabeth shook her head. “This country was lucky. We were far enough away from real threats to peace that we were secure. We had abundant resources. For the most part, Americans immediately after the Revolution were healthy, strong people. It was the environment democracy needed.”

She set the speech back in her briefcase. “We had—and in many ways, are still having—our growing pains as a democracy. Can you imagine what it’s like when people are worried about their children dying from disease because they don’t get immunizations? When people are more worried about how they’re going to eat tomorrow, oppression doesn’t seem to matter so much. That’s where we have to start. We have to start with giving them what they need to choose for themselves, not taking away what they have and hoping they stumble into freedom of speech while they’re scrambling for bread. A distracted citizenry doesn’t make for strong democracy.”

When Jed started to smile a little, Elizabeth said, “I’m sorry, sir, did I say something funny?”

“No, it’s just that I read something very similar to that in the _New York Times_ yesterday,” he replied. From her, though, the argument was more convincing. “You don’t know a reporter named Danny Concannon, do you?”

She looked like she was trying not to smile. “He’s my boyfriend. We were talking about this the other night.”

“Well, that explains that.” Jed shifted in his chair. “Mind if I ask you something?”

“No.”

“How old are you?”

“I’m twenty-two,” she said without pause. “I just finished my second year of law school.” At his odd look, she added, “Yes, I’m too young to have started law school at all. Late birthday, and I skipped a grade.”

He resisted the urge to roll his eyes. “My daughter Elizabeth is twenty-two,” he replied. “She just got married.”

This Elizabeth blinked. “You’re not happy about that?”

“Oh, I’m happy,” he said, “but I’d prefer it if she and Ellie and Zoey just stayed toddlers their whole lives.”

She laughed softly and looked down. “You and my father could probably commiserate. But I said I’d only take a minute of your time. I’ve stayed here much longer than that.”

“I’m sure your father and I could relate.” He stood up, and Elizabeth did as well. “It was nice meeting you, Elizabeth,” he said, shaking her hand. “I’m not fully convinced yet, but… you can tell your boss that I’ll have the speech stricken from the record.”

Her eyes widened. “Sir?”

“You’re right about a lot of things,” Jed replied. “And the issue’s serious enough that we don’t need people like me saying inflammatory things on the record.” He stared at her quite seriously. “But the next time there’s a foreign ops bill in the House, the CGP needs to come out in support of it. Being anti-military is all well and good, but you have to support ways to solve problems without resorting to force.”

“Yes, sir,” she said, smiling softly. “I’ll let them know.”

They stood there for a moment. “You’re a lot like your father, Elizabeth.”

“Thank you, sir.”

She moved to leave, but he acted on an impulse and said, “You busy tonight?”

“Excuse me, sir?” she asked at the door, sounding almost alarmed.

“Well, I said I’m not convinced yet,” he said. “Come over and have dinner with Abbey and the girls and me, and you can try to convince me again.”

“I’m not sure how my boss would react to that.”

“How did he react to you dating the House correspondent for the _New York Times_?”

From the rather mischievous smile he got in answer, Jed figured that either her boss didn’t know or had had this argument with her before. “When should I show up?” Elizabeth asked.

* * *

It was strange to think that the journey from Colorado to upstate New York took more time than crossing from Pegasus to the Milky Way. And this was less cumbersome than it would be for others. A plane had been waiting for them at Peterson when they stepped through the gate, and once the transport plane landed at the base in New York, a helicopter picked them up. Neither Elizabeth nor John asked who made these arrangements. They both knew.

Since they’d talked with the President back in her office, light-years behind them, John had left her side only long enough to grab a duffel bag and stuff it with clothing. His obvious concern was understandable. Elizabeth had barely spoken since the President had explained the situation with her father. She spent most of the plane ride staring out the window, feeling sick. John tried once or twice to talk with her, but eventually resorted to getting a book from her bag and reading it.

On the helicopter, however, as they neared the hospital to which her father had been moved, Elizabeth’s fingers were laced through his. She had never liked helicopters, and even though this one was nicer for passengers than most she had been on, she would have preferred any other form of transportation. So she leaned her head against John’s shoulder and tried not to think. She wasn’t terribly successful.

He’d been in his dress uniform since they’d left Atlantis, as they had both assumed that they were traveling directly to Washington first. When Elizabeth first tried to lean against him, he slipped his hand under her head and removed the rank insignia from his shoulder mark, and now she turned the silver oak cluster over in her free hand. It was one of many things that wasn’t helping her. She remembered doing just that with her father’s insignia as a little girl.

John’s fingers tightened around her hand, tugging at her attention. “Elizabeth,” he said, “can I ask you something?”

She nodded, still staring at his insignia. “How long has your father been sick?” he asked.

Elizabeth sighed softly, looking up at the wall across from them. “He was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease two weeks before he resigned as HUD Secretary,” she replied. “That was fifteen years ago, just after I graduated from law school. I moved in with him, and we managed for a while.”

She sat up and pinned the insignia back to his shoulder mark. “His memory got a lot worse over the next five years. He was forgetting that Mom died when we were still living in Iowa. And I was in elementary school when we moved to New York. I started working for the General Counsel for the United Nations about two years after the diagnosis, and by the time I finally went back to school for my doctorate he couldn’t remember my name half the time.”

“Elizabeth…”

She shook her head. “We’d talked about it. He’d told me, back when he was diagnosed, that if I had to start giving up things in my career to take care of him, or if he couldn’t remember me, I was to put him in a nursing home.”

“So you did?”

“I was missing a lot of time at work, but it was still one of the hardest decisions I had to make,” she replied. “It had just been him and me for so long. I _wanted_ to be able to take care of him.”

“Hey,” he said, “you did what he wanted you to do.”

“It was a week before Christmas,” said Elizabeth. “I felt like a horrible person, doing that to him at Christmas.”

John was quiet for a while, until he turned and kissed her temple—the second time that day that he had done that, Elizabeth reflected. It seemed so long ago that he’d woken her up that way. “You did what he wanted,” he repeated.

She nodded, still unwilling to look at him. “And about five years ago his health started declining,” she replied. “I was glad then that he was already in a home and being taken care of. President Bartlet had already started sending me all over the world by then.”

Something prompted John to look around, though Elizabeth knew not what. Then he stood abruptly and said, “We’re coming in for landing.”

“How can you tell?” she asked, watching him as he grabbed his white scarf and overcoat.

“I used to fly these things for a living, Elizabeth.”

True to his word, the helicopter began its descent a few moments later, and when it had landed, John climbed out of it and offered Elizabeth his help getting down. It was windy up on the hospital’s helipad, and the landscape was covered with snow. Between the white of the land and the grey of the sky was a thick line of trees, black and bare from deep winter.

“How’d you think they convinced the hospital to let a military chopper land?” he asked, voice raised to be heard over the helicopter.

“It’s a VA hospital,” Elizabeth replied, pulling her coat a little tighter as they headed toward the entrance to the building below.

“Your dad’s a veteran?”

“Korea,” she replied.

She didn’t expound further, as John was opening a door for her and they had to descend a narrow flight of stairs before alighting in the top floor of the hospital. There the surroundings were still white, but they were crisp and clean, utterly unlike the snowy drabness outside. John shrugged his coat and scarf off as an Indian woman in a white coat approached them. “Colonel, can I help you?” she asked.

“Colonel John Sheppard,” he said, extending his hand to her. “This is Dr. Elizabeth Weir.”

The woman frowned as she shook their hands in turn. “We weren’t expecting a doctor by that name… Oh! You’re not a medical doctor,” she said.

“No. Political science.”

“Ambika Jahnavi,” said the doctor. “Cardiologist. You’re William Weir’s daughter, aren’t you?”

Elizabeth nodded. “How is—Is he—”

“He’s still alive,” Dr. Jahnavi replied. “I can take you to him, if you like, and explain his condition on the way.”

She nodded again, and the three headed toward an elevator. Two of John’s fingers hooked Elizabeth’s as the doctor explained, “He experienced a cardiac event two nights ago. His heart stopped beating for about half an hour.”

“What can you do for him?” John asked.

An elevator opened, and they waited for its occupants to exit before entering it themselves. “Usually, we’d have a variety of treatment options available,” Jahnavi replied, “but Mr. Weir is an old man. The human body isn’t designed to last forever.”

“Is there nothing you can do?” Elizabeth asked, very softly.

“We’re doing what we can, Doctor,” the woman replied. “We’re running tests and trying to find something we can do to help. He’s conscious, though, and lucid, and I think—”

“Wait,” Elizabeth interrupted. “He’s lucid?”

Jahnavi looked at her in bewilderment. “They told me that you would need a good deal of information, but I thought that surely someone would have told you this,” she said. “He’s been on an experimental treatment for the last ten months. It’s increased activity in areas of the brain thought to be affected by Alzheimer’s, and it seems to be doing wonders for him. He doesn’t remember everything, but he remembers enough to carry on a conversation.”

The elevator came to a stop. “Does he remember me?” Elizabeth asked.

“The president called yesterday to tell him that you were on your way here from North Korea,” the doctor explained as the door slid open. “He’s been asking all day about when you’d arrive.”

Without thinking about it, Elizabeth grasped John’s hand. Years ago she had given up hope of ever being able to hold a real conversation with her father again. This seemed too much to ask.

The cardiologist led them down a corridor and stopped at a nondescript door. She knocked and peeked her head in. “Is he awake?” she asked. The answer must have been that he was, because she then opened the door wider and beckoned John and Elizabeth to follow her.

There was her father, smaller than she remembered, lying on the bed with all kinds of tubes in him and attached to so many monitors. His head turned when her heel clicked on the linoleum, and he lifted his hand a little in greeting. “Elizabeth.”

In the shock of hearing her name from him, Elizabeth forgot all decorum, pushing past Dr. Jahnavi. “Dad,” she said, taking his hand in hers.

A weak smile formed on his face. “They said you were coming,” he said. “Wondered if I was dreaming.”

“No, Dad, I’m here,” she said, brushing her fingers across the thin, white hair on his forehead.

“I’m sorry, honey,” said her father, his voice a little raspy. “I’ve put you through a lot.”

“No, no, no,” Elizabeth replied. “It wasn’t your fault.”

He looked past her for a moment. “Who’d you bring?”

She half-turned, and John took the hint to approach. “Dad,” she began, “this is—”

“An Air Force man?” he said. “Thought you had better taste than to hang around with zoomies.”

Elizabeth let out a short laugh, mostly at the surprised look on John’s face. “This is John Sheppard,” she said. “He’s a lieutenant colonel—”

“Yes,” her father interrupted again. “I can read insignia, Elizabeth.”

“Mr. Weir,” John interjected, “I’m glad to meet you, sir.”

He nodded, but added gruffly, “She’s got you trained well.”

John looked like he didn’t quite know how to react, but he did the best thing possible by ignoring it. “Elizabeth,” he said, “I’ll wait outside.”

She nodded. “All right.”

He kissed her cheek and left, leaving her in relative solitude with her father. The doctor and the nurse were still there, but Elizabeth pulled a nearby chair closer to the bed and sank into it. Her father pulled his hand out of hers to touch her hair. “The president called yesterday and said he was going to get you back to see me,” he said. “Said you might have changed.”

“I’ve been doing some incredible things over the last two years,” she replied.

“You’re still my baby girl.” His hand dropped back to the bed. “Didn’t expect you to be hanging around an officer, though.”

Elizabeth smiled softly. “You were an officer too, Dad.”

“Yes, but he’s a pilot.”

“So were you.”

“That’s why I know better than to let him near you.”

He sighed, and Elizabeth brushed her fingers against his cheek. “You realize I’m a grown woman, right?”

“I still get to disapprove of your boyfriends,” he replied. “Does he respect you?”

“I wouldn’t be with him otherwise.”

“And he’ll take good care of you when I’m gone?”

Elizabeth was suddenly on the verge of tears. “Dad, please, don’t talk that way.”

“Elizabeth,” he said gently. “My little Lizabeth… I know what the doctors are saying, but I know my own body too. I’m dying, sweetheart. I can feel it. I’m not afraid, but I don’t want to leave you alone.”

She shook her head. “I’m not alone.”

Their hands clasped, and Elizabeth bit her lower lip. “I love you, baby girl,” he said.

“I love you too.”

There was a long pause, and then he looked up at the ceiling. “Now,” he said, “it’s time for the nurse to take sixteen blood samples. You look about as tired as me, so maybe you should get some sleep.”

Reluctantly, Elizabeth stood. “I’ll be back in the morning.” She leaned over to kiss his forehead. “Good night, Dad.”

“Good night, Elizabeth.”

She left the room wanting very much to stay, but knowing her father was right, that she needed sleep. Out in the hall, John was waiting for her, wearing his coat and scarf once more. He met her halfway, enveloping her in a hug and pressing soft, comforting kisses to her forehead and cheek. Thus they stayed for a long time, until John whispered to her that she needed to get to bed. As they left the hospital, Elizabeth’s hand was firmly in his, leaving her to wonder when John had become such an anchor for her.

* * *

There was a hotel across the street from the hospital, and by the time John and Elizabeth made it over there, their belongings had already been taken from the helicopter to their room. When John got out of the shower, Elizabeth had changed out of her suit and fallen asleep on top of the covers. He wasn’t particularly tired yet, so he pulled out the book he’d been reading on the plane and sat next to her, one hand playing with her hair as he read.

Fifty pages later, the cell phone on the night stand started vibrating. There were only a handful of people who knew that General Landry had given him a cell phone before they’d left the mountain, so John knew better than to ignore it. Setting his book aside, he opened the phone and said, “Sheppard.”

“Hello, this is Jed Bartlet,” said the voice on the other end.

“Mr. President,” he replied. “How can I help you?”

“I was calling to check on Elizabeth, actually,” the president said. “Is she there?”

“She’s sleeping, sir,” John answered. “I’d wake her, but she really needs the sleep.”

“That’s okay,” said Bartlet. “How’s her father?”

John sighed. “Not good. I think the most positive thing now is that he remembers her.”

“Sometimes that’s all you can hope for. I think it’s more than she was expecting.” There was a long pause. “How’s she taking it?”

“She seems to have a lot of mixed feelings about it,” John replied. “Thrilled that she can talk to him again, but… the man’s dying. She’s handling it as best she can.”

“Did you get to talk to him?” Bartlet asked.

“A little,” said John. “I let him and Elizabeth have some time alone.”

“What’d you think?”

“Well, he seems like a nice man, but he’s not keen on me.”

“That seems strange,” said the president. “He was a Navy pilot in Korea.”

John blinked. “That explains a lot, actually. The Air Force and Navy weren’t on good terms then. And if I had a daughter, I probably wouldn’t want her around most pilots either.”

The president chuckled. “Have to say I agree with you, and I do have daughters. Tell you what, I’ve got about three minutes free before lunch tomorrow. I’ll call again then. Let her sleep for now.”

“Thank you, sir,” John replied. “I’ll let her know you called.”

“Thanks. Talk to you soon.”

The president hung up, and John closed the cell phone and set it aside. To his left, Elizabeth was still soundly asleep. He reached down to brush stray hair away from her mouth. For reasons unbeknownst to himself, he suddenly whispered something he’d never said to her, but thought she ought to hear.

She didn’t stir, so John just shook his head, turning the lamp off and smiling despite himself. Sometimes his timing was so abysmal that he wondered how he ever managed to get out of flight school. He lay down next to her, still on top of the covers, even though knew he’d regret it when he woke with freezing feet in the morning. It wasn’t that late in the evening, but just that morning he had returned from a mission for which they’d never debriefed. Thirty-six hours had passed quickly, and it wasn’t long before he’d fallen asleep too.


	3. Chapter 3

From what Danny Concannon understood, there were two reporters who knew things about the Stargate program. One knew about _Prometheus_ ; the other knew a great deal more. Still, as he stood in the SGC briefing room, twenty-six levels below ground, he couldn’t help but feel a twinge of smugness over it. Neither of them had figured it out on their own.

“Mr. Concannon?”

Danny turned toward one of the room’s doors and saw General Landry entering. “General,” he said, “it’s good to meet you.”

“I’ve heard of you before.” Landry walked to the head of the table and tossed a folder down. “I had to clean up after you at the Pentagon a few years ago.”

“Over Shareef and the executive orders?”

“Well, I can’t tell you that, can I?” He pulled a chair back. “Have a seat, Danny. I don’t have all day to go over things with you.”

Danny did as he was told. “I’m just grateful for whatever time you can give me.”

“First of all, whatever you write is going to go across my desk first. Not everything in this place is being disclosed.”

“I’d anticipated as much.” Danny flipped his notebook open. “I assume I have to do my own research.”

“All of it.” Landry fixed him with a hard stare. “We’re not going to have any quotes dropped into this story by your researcher and editor.”

“I was expecting no less,” Danny replied. “When do I start?”

The general slid a paper across the table. “This is your schedule for interviews. We’re busy people around here, and most of us would rather not spend more time than we have to talking to a reporter. We all have jobs to do, and the disclosure next month isn’t going to make those jobs any easier.”

“I understand, General.” Danny studied the list for a moment, perusing names. Some were familiar; others were not. Then abruptly he realized what name was missing. “Why isn’t Dr. Weir listed?” he asked. “I thought she was coming back to Earth.”

“She and Colonel Sheppard went straight from here to New York,” said Landry. “You’ll interview them in Washington.”

He frowned. “What’s she doing in New York?”

* * *

_Washington, D. C.  
Thirteen years earlier_

It had been a long, hard day at work, and Danny had barely gotten his story filed by the deadline. Granted, that was nothing particularly new, but his editor was starting to get tired of it, and was threatening to transfer him to something slightly less exciting than House reporting. Fortunately he’d gotten an unexpected lead two nights before.

He slipped into his apartment—the one Elizabeth had moved into just a month before—and was surprised that the lights were on. Elizabeth was a workaholic, after all, and he’d had to drag her out of her office on occasion to get her to eat and sleep. For her to beat him home was rather unusual.

“Liz?” he called.

Danny got no response, so he started through, first into the deserted kitchen, then toward the bedroom. “Liz?” he repeated.

“I’m in here,” she called.

His first thought when he pushed open the bedroom door was that she had to have been home for a while. August in the District was never pleasant, and she was already dressed in shorts and a tank top, her hair pulled back into a messy ponytail. His second thought was that he really didn’t care how long she’d been home. She was on her knees in front of the closet, and when she stood and bumped into him, he grabbed her by the back of the neck and kissed her.

People had been wondering for a couple years now how someone like Danny had managed to hold on to Elizabeth Weir. He wasn’t blatantly handsome, and he was a bit geekier than most would expect from her boyfriend, but the truth of the matter was that this was how he’d kept her. He was funny, he was smart, and he was a good kisser.

But the strange thing was—and it took him a while to realize this—she was pushing him away. Elizabeth was gasping by the time she managed to disentangle herself from him, and she took a few steps back, almost tripping over something. “Liz,” he prompted.

“Danny, I can’t—” she started, then broke off abruptly and turned back to what she’d nearly tripped on. “Don’t call me that.”

It was then that Danny finally took a look at what was behind her, and saw a box half-filled with winter clothing. Then he looked around the room and saw more boxes. “Liz, what’s going on?” he asked.

“I told you not to call me that,” she said, pulling a sweater from the closet and stuffing it into the box at her feet. “I hate that nickname.”

He stepped around the box to face her. “You want to tell me what’s going on?”

She stared at him unflinchingly. “I got a job offer today,” she said.

They stood and stared at each other for a full minute before Elizabeth finally turned and resumed pulling her belongings out of his closet. “What do you mean, a job offer?” he finally demanded. “From who?”

“Patrick Keirsey,” she replied, picking up an empty box and heading out of the room.

Danny followed her, almost at a run. “Patrick Keirsey, Democrat from New Hampshire, stepping down from office to take Jordan Kendall’s position as general counsel for the United Nations?” he asked.

“Is there another Patrick Keirsey?” Elizabeth asked, dropping the box in front of a bookshelf in the living room.

“You’re taking a job at the UN.”

“Seems like it.”

“And when were you planning on telling me you’re moving to New York?” Danny demanded.

“I was thinking about letting you find out on your own,” she replied, heading over to the dining room table, where a copy of that morning’s _New York Times_ lay on top of a sealed box. “When were you planning on telling me I was on the record the other night?”

“What are you talking about?”

“Two nights ago I mentioned how closed-door negotiations with the majority leader were going, and this morning it was in the paper!” The last few words she almost screamed. “Do you know how many people there were in that meeting?”

“There were sixteen people from the CGP, and at least a thousand from Whittle’s office—”

“There were ten people in the Roosevelt Room, Danny. _Ten_.” She took a deep breath. “That’s including my boss and Congressman Whittle. Do you know how long it took for them to draw the line to the leak?”

“You’ve got a new job anyway, so what does it matter?” he asked.

Elizabeth glared at him, eyes cold. “Don’t you dare try to be flippant with me,” she answered. “I spent half an hour this morning explaining to Congressman Keirsey that I didn’t go to you on the record with that information. I think the only reason he offered me the job was because Governor Bartlet recommended me to him.”

Danny leaned against the bookcase, trying to formulate something to say. “Look, Liz, I’m—”

“I said, don’t call me that,” she interrupted. She shoved the newspaper off the box and onto the floor. “Get out of my way,” she ordered. “I have packing to do.”

* * *

William Weir was still asleep when John and Elizabeth arrived in his room the next day. Normally the hospital staff wouldn’t have allowed them in, as it was well outside of visiting hours, but a combination of things, including the fact that the staff had been getting calls from the Oval Office, led to a circumventing of that rule.

So Elizabeth sat by her father’s bedside while John stood at the bay window, torn between two views. Outside, the sky seemed so much closer than usual, filled with dark, heavy clouds. It had begun to snow again, and every now and then a snow plow would drive by. Inside, Elizabeth looked like she was on the verge of tears. Neither of them had slept particularly well, both fearing a phone call, and John knew that she was always a little more emotional than usual when she was tired.

She was holding his hand, her thumb rubbing against the wrinkled skin. John knew she had done the same for many a wounded man in the Atlantis infirmary, but never with this kind of single-minded devotion. Not even for him. It seemed a little strange in a way, because Elizabeth had rarely spoken to him of her father. But there were many painful things for both of them that they just didn’t speak of. She was not one to dwell, no matter how deeply she loved.

He was pondering this, trying to fix this image of her in his mind, when the cell phone in his jacket pocket rang. Elizabeth looked up at him, but didn’t react otherwise. John drew it from his pocket and opened it. “Sheppard.”

“Colonel Sheppard, this is Deborah Fiderer,” said a woman’s voice. “I believe we met several months ago.”

“I think we did.” John finally turned his back on the window entirely. “What can I do for you?”

“The president would like to speak with Dr. Weir, if she’s available.”

“Just a sec.” John lowered the phone and looked at Elizabeth. “It’s Debbie Fiderer. The president wants to speak to you.”

For the first time in his acquaintance with her, she hesitated about speaking to Jed Bartlet, looking down at her father’s hand. “Hey,” John said, “I’ll sit with him. You can step out and talk.”

She nodded and stood. “Okay.”

He handed her the phone, and as she left the room, he took her place by the bed. For a few minutes it was all quiet, but then the elderly man stirred. Convenient, John told himself, that this would happen just after Elizabeth had left the room.

“Water,” the man rasped. John quickly sat up straighter and glanced around, spotting a glass of water with a straw on the bedside table. Weir held his hand out for it, so John decided to let him hold the glass himself. His hands were shaking and it took him a long time, but that reminded John more of Elizabeth than anything else. She never wanted to take the easy road either.

He handed the glass back and said, “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome, sir,” John replied.

At the sound of John’s voice, Elizabeth’s father finally looked at him. “You’re the one who came in with my daughter yesterday,” he said.

“Yes, sir.”

“Well, I don’t think we were properly introduced yesterday,” Weir replied. “All I know is that you’re sleeping with my daughter.”

John blinked several times, but decided to ignore the last bit. He extended his hand. “I’m John Sheppard.”

“William Weir,” he replied, shaking John’s hand weakly. “I see you’re not going to deny it.”

John shrugged. “It’s true. No point in denying it.”

Weir laughed a little before it descended into coughs. John started to offer him water again, but he waved it away. “You get points for honesty, at least.” He coughed a few more times. “You know what my objection was, right?”

“She’s your daughter, and I’m a pilot?” John suggested.

“Well, at least you’re aware of it.” He looked around the room. “Speaking of my daughter, where is she?”

“Oh, the president called,” said John. “She stepped out to the hall to talk to him.”

“Strange to think of my daughter getting phone calls from the president,” Weir replied. “I guess that shouldn’t surprise me much, given what President Bartlet’s told me.”

John suddenly sat up straighter. “Sir, how much do you—”

“Colonel, cut the ‘sir’ crap,” Weir interrupted. “You outrank me by three grades. I left the Navy as a lieutenant J. G., not a bloody admiral.”

Frowning in confusion, John asked, “Then… what do I call you?”

“William,” the man replied. “Always hated formality, even in the Cabinet. Call me William.”

John wasn’t sure he felt entirely comfortable with that. Formality with him was a little more secure. “Well,” he began, “how much do you know?”

“He told me about something called a ‘Stargate’,” said William, “and an expedition to another galaxy. He said my daughter’s been leading it for two years.” He shook his head. “She’s changed. In high school you had to drag her into leadership roles.”

“She wasn’t completely sure of herself at first,” John replied. “And I guess I wasn’t that helpful for a while.”

“It was probably good for her,” William answered. “Not that I’m approving.”

“Wouldn’t expect you to,” John said with a smirk. “But she’s come into it well. Military, civilians, everyone there respects her.”

“Even though she’s having a scandalous affair with her ranking military officer?”

“There’s one good thing about the rumor mill,” John replied. “They tend not to believe things that are actually true.”

William smiled weakly. “I remember that. There were always rumors about me and various women, but the most unbelievable ones were always the ones that were true.”

The two of them started laughing, and it was on that note that Elizabeth reentered the room. “You two are plotting something,” she said.

“No, just talking about rumors.” John extended his hand to her, which she clasped as she came to his side. “What did the president want?”

“To bring me up to speed on some things,” Elizabeth replied. “Though I can’t imagine why he couldn’t have told you all that last night.”

“Maybe because I’m not your personal aide?” he suggested, lightly tickling at her ribs before resting his hand on her waist. “Besides, you know how I am with details. Can’t even remember birthdays.”

“John,” she replied, “that was pitiful.”

He beamed up at her. “I try.”

She shook her head and mussed his hair. When John looked back at William, he saw the man watching them curiously. Perhaps he was imagining it, but he thought he saw a smile.

* * *

“Thanks, Elizabeth. We’ll talk again soon.”

No sooner had Jed Bartlet hung up the phone than Debbie opened the door to the Oval Office. “How do you do that?” he asked.

“Do what?”

“Know when I’m off the phone.”

“There’s a light on my phone,” Debbie replied, like it was the most obvious thing in the world. “It goes off when you hang up.”

“Yeah, whatever,” Jed said dismissively. “What have you got for me?”

“The British ambassador, sir.”

“John!” Jed called.

“I’ll show him in, of course,” Debbie said, dryly.

Lord Marbury ambled in a few moments later, alone and empty-handed. He was one of the few ambassadors who showed up in this office with neither staff nor notes, and that was one of the reasons Jed trusted Marbury’s opinion so much. It had a very honest quality to it, though he also suspected that that could easily be blamed on the bourbon.

“John,” he repeated.

“Mr. President,” said Marbury. “It’s an honor and a privilege, as usual.”

“Sorry to make you wait,” Jed continued as Debbie shut the door. “I was on the phone with Elizabeth Weir.”

“Ah, so you decided to bring her back from a different galaxy to let the press at her?”

“Well, that wasn’t my only reason, but she’ll be dealing with the press quite a lot.” The two men sat down in armchairs facing each other. “But that’s not what you’re here to talk about.”

“No,” the ambassador replied. “It’s unfortunate that your elections never seem to end in this country. There really is no good time to make an announcement like this.”

“There wasn’t a good time to announce that I have multiple sclerosis, either,” Jed answered, “but we did it anyway.”

“Yes, but that affected you far more than it affected anyone else.” Marbury cut off Jed’s attempt at a response. “Yes, certainly there was outrage over your lack of candor about it, but the public outcry over this will make that seem like a paper cut. Travel to other planets? Alien life not just in this galaxy, but in others? There is no good way to handle this.”

“I think we all knew there was only so long we could keep this a secret, John.”

“Yes, especially as you people kept widening the circle of people who knew,” said Marbury. “Speaking of which, do you have a plan for notifying your staff and your Congress?”

“We’re telling Toby on Wednesday,” Jed replied. “This election is going to be close, so we’re going to start telling the other staffers who need to know once the election’s been called.”

“Congress?”

“We’re bringing in several key people a week from today.”

“And Abigail?”

Jed shifted in his chair. That was a conversation he wasn’t looking forward to. “She’s in that group.”

“Well, if you require assistance during any of those meetings, I would be happy to lend it,” Marbury said.

“I’ll keep that in mind,” Jed replied. “But for now, let’s talk internationally.”

* * *

When they left the hospital that evening, Elizabeth was in a much better mood than John had anticipated. She wasn’t happy, exactly, but she was content. Her father had led a good, long life. John hoped that would make the inevitable easier to bear.

But for now, she was still eating, still laughing at his bad attempts at humor. When they returned to the hotel after dinner, she turned on the television. The drone of it, once so familiar, seemed strange and distracting now. Then as the winter storm cleared and starlight began to fill the night, Elizabeth was sitting on the end of the bed, watching CNN, while John sat behind her, massaging her neck and shoulders to work out some of the tension in her muscles. Occasionally he would push her hair away and press a soft kiss to her neck. The last time he did it, she shivered and turned the television off.

“John,” she said, “what were you and Dad talking about?”

“You,” he replied. “He’s proud of you, Elizabeth. Proud of everything you’ve done.”

Elizabeth nodded. “The president told him about the Stargate. About Atlantis.”

“I know.” John leaned forward, resting his cheek against the side of her neck. “I imagine he told you his objection to me when I left you alone with him.”

He could almost sense her rolling her eyes. “I’m his only child,” she replied, “and he wasn’t young when I was born. He’s always been protective.”

“He was a pilot,” said John. “He knows what pilots are like.”

“You’re not like that.”

“I used to be.” Elizabeth leaned away from him in order to look over her shoulder at him. “Listen,” he continued, “I know what it means to you, but I don’t want you to spend a lot of time trying to get him to like me. Just spend time with him.”

“He does like you.” She looked down and smiled. “I know he wasn’t acting like it, but I know him. He likes you more than he’d probably care to admit.”

John kissed her cheek and brought his free hand up to touch her face. “You know, when Carson told you to take a few days off, I think he had something more restful in mind.”

“I know.” A sly smile began to form. “At least the chances of you getting shot are severely diminished.”

She started to turn around to face him, and he moved his hands to her waist. “I don’t know about that,” he replied. “How many times has President Bartlet been shot at?”

“Once. Twice if you count the time someone shot at the press room.” Her smile turned teasing. “Too risky?”

“It’s always too risky.”

As soon as the words were out of his mouth, he began hoping that she wouldn’t realize that he was talking about her, not himself, but as usual, she knew exactly what he meant. She looked up at him again. “John,” she began.

“Elizabeth,” he interrupted, shaking his head, “just forget I said it.”

Slowly, she shook her head too. “No.”

“No?”

She leaned forward then and kissed him. But when her hands touched his face, he gasped and backed away. “What?” she said, looking very confused.

“Your hands are freezing,” he replied. “Oh, that reminds me…”

He jumped up and hurried out of the room, returning with two small tubs of ice cream and spoons. Elizabeth looked at him with an incredulous expression on her face. “When did you get that?” she asked.

“Ran down the street while you were in the shower. The clerk looked at me like I was crazy, buying ice cream when there’s fifteen inches of snow on the ground.” He looked at the containers in his hands. “Your options are… cookie dough, or fifteen forms of chocolate in one ice cream.”

“The chocolate, please,” she said. But when he sat down on the bed and offered it to her, she grabbed him by the collar instead and pulled him in for a kiss that almost made both of them forget about the ice cream entirely. With a strange muffled sound she abruptly broke it off and said, “Maybe we should eat the ice cream before it melts all over the comforter.”

Reluctantly, John removed his hands from her and glared. “You and your logic.”

He handed her the ice cream anyway, knowing it was a rarer commodity in Atlantis than he was. He wanted her to have this kind of unguarded moment when she didn’t have to be worried about everything. That was even rarer than ice cream.

They talked for a while, but it wasn’t long before Elizabeth started getting visibly tired. More than once she almost dropped her ice cream, her spoon, or both, and when John took the container away from her and took it back to the mini fridge, she didn’t object. He came back and managed to get her under the covers, then turned off the lights in the room before crawling into bed with her.

John didn’t know how much time had passed before the cell phone rang, waking both him and Elizabeth. To his surprise, she was alert almost immediately, and almost crawled over him to get to the phone.

“Hello,” he heard her say. “Yes… Is he—oh… Was he… . Oh.”

John sat up, and though he could only see a dim outline of her, he reached for her hand. Her fingers curled around his. “Thank you, Doctor,” she said, very softly.

By the time she had closed the phone, she was already shaking, and John pulled her into a soft embrace, letting her cry until she couldn’t anymore. In the morning, while Elizabeth slept fitfully, he called the Oval Office and left a message that William Weir had died in his sleep.


	4. Chapter 4

“You’ve been awfully quiet, Danny. What’re you plotting?”

The White House press room was devoid of many of the familiar faces of the last eight years. It was rare for a reporter to last that long in this stressful environment, and many of them went on hiatus from time to time, either to pursue other stories or just to take a break. Now, of course, most of the usual crowd were covering either the Vinick or Santos campaigns. In the twilight of the Bartlet administration, the exciting news wasn’t at the White House anymore. There were several who had asked Danny why he was still there, but this one was the only one who’d come close.

In the last eight years, Chris had worked for a half a dozen publications, but had always been in this room. She’d learned to read Danny just about as well as anyone else had. “Oh, you know, the usual,” Danny said, trying to be vague. “Work, work, work.”

Chris sat down across the table from him. “You look like you’re worried someone’s going to steal your story.”

“I’m always worried someone’s going to steal my story,” he replied.

“Yeah, but this looks big.” She opened her notebook, but then closed it again. “Seriously, Danny, you look like you’re about to uncover a massive government conspiracy. Again.”

If only she knew how right she was.

* * *

The day after her father’s death, Elizabeth spent a great deal of time talking with a lawyer about the terms of the will, something John never expected her to handle so quickly. But so much of this trip was about to be consumed by disclosure that there was really no time to waste. As a result, John found himself dealing much more with a local funeral home and Arlington National Cemetery than he had anticipated.

That evening, they took a late flight into Washington. Elizabeth was not speaking very much when she didn’t have to, not that John blamed her. Still, she seemed more relaxed than she had when they’d first returned to Earth. Dealing with the event was easier than dealing with the anticipation.

They took a cab from the airport and arrived at a row of townhouses in Georgetown well after midnight. John carried their bags up while Elizabeth fumbled in the dark for her keys, keys she hadn’t used in so long. It was almost surprising to hear the mechanical clunk of the lock and the creak of the door, after so many months of click and swish.

The entrance was short and narrow, and opened into a wide living room. The opposite wall was composed almost entirely of windows and French doors. Through their sheer curtains moonlight was spilling, casting shadows and silhouettes all around. John saw furniture draped in white slipcovers, and boxes, some open, some sealed, lay around the floor and tabletops. It was almost painfully reminiscent of stepping into the Atlantis control room for the first time. The sense of abandonment was just as keen.

“Lonely in here,” John said. He didn’t bother trying the lights; the moonlight was more than enough.

“No one’s been in here since ten days before the expedition left,” Elizabeth replied. “I thought about renting it out or selling it, but there just wasn’t enough time for that.”

John was suddenly quite glad that he hadn’t had to deal with that kind of thing. He’d just packed up everything and gotten out of Antarctica on the next available flight. That was when he’d had his first substantial conversation with Elizabeth, the first time he’d seen that she was as eager about this expedition business as he usually was about getting into a new aircraft for the first time. She’d spent at least an hour telling him how grateful she was that he’d agreed to come, and that left him with the very wrong impression that she would be soft. He’d since learned that there were things about her that were very soft, but none of them had to do with how she commanded the city.

He set their luggage at the foot of the stairs and followed her in the other direction, into a kitchen much larger than he would have expected. There Elizabeth still didn’t bother with the lights, but did try the faucet. To John’s surprise, water spilled down, sparkling in the low light. “You didn’t have your water turned off?” he asked. He had assumed that she’d had the power cut too.

She didn’t answer immediately, and when John looked at her more closely, he saw that she had started to cry. The night before, when she’d been only inches away, it had been easy for him to comfort her, and impossible not to. Now, separated by an entire room, it was more difficult. “Elizabeth,” he began.

But she shook her head, wiping her eyes with her palms. “I’m all right,” she said.

Slowly, John approached her, laying his hand on her shoulder. “You will be.” He kissed the top of her head, and could feel her inhaling deeply. After reaching over and turning the water off, he said, “We have an early morning tomorrow.”

Elizabeth nodded and stood up a little straighter. “Let’s just hope we can find clean sheets somewhere in this house.”

* * *

It was election day, and Toby Ziegler had absolutely nothing to do.

Of course, when he wandered back four years, he remembered that there had been very little to do then either, except that Andi was three months pregnant with the twins at the time and they’d gone to the first sonogram that day. Now he was just spending an inordinate amount of time looking at pictures of the kids while contemplating the meaning of semicolons.

There was, alas, only so much of that he could take, so it wasn’t long before he took to wandering the halls. After he’d sufficiently freaked out everyone in the communications bullpen with his boredom, he meandered toward the Oval Office. He was expecting to find Debbie, but instead found one familiar face and one unfamiliar. Toby stood and watched for a moment as the tall, dark-haired Air Force officer touched the brunette’s cheek. Elizabeth Weir looked down and chidingly said, “John…”

In order to stave off potential embarrassment, Toby rapped on the door frame, and both of the room’s occupants looked up at him abruptly. “I’m sorry,” he said, “but have either of you seen Debbie?”

“No, no one was in here when we were escorted in,” Weir replied. She turned around and approached him. “Toby, it’s good to see you again.”

“Yeah, it’s good to see you too, Doctor,” he said. “I didn’t realize you were going to be in town today.”

“Well, things were rather… fluid,” she answered. “How are Andi and the kids?”

“They’re great,” Toby replied. “Molly’s been a little sick this fall, but that seems to be normal for her.”

“Good.”

“Listen,” he continued, “I heard about your father.”

Elizabeth looked genuinely startled. “How?”

“To be honest, I don’t remember. I hear a lot of things, and I’m lucky if I remember where half of them came from,” Toby said. “I didn’t know Secretary Weir, but I always heard a lot about him. Never heard anything bad.”

“Thank you,” she replied, nodding a little. “In this town, that can mean a lot.”

“Yeah, it can.”

“Oh,” she said, looking over her shoulder, “let me introduce you. This is John Sheppard; John, Toby Ziegler.”

“How do you do, Colonel.”

“Nice to meet you,” the officer replied.

“John, this is David Ziegler’s brother,” Elizabeth supplied.

Sheppard got a bit of an odd look on his face as he looked back and forth between them. “Does he know?” he asked, pointing at Toby.

Just then, the door from the Mural Room swung open, and the President entered with Debbie and CJ. “Eight years in this place,” he was saying, “and I still can’t get—Elizabeth!”

“Mr. President,” she said.

“I thought I told them to tell me when you got here,” Bartlet said. “Elizabeth, I’m so sorry about your father.”

“Thank you, sir. I appreciate that.”

The president turned his attention next to the officer. “John,” he said, “good to see you again. Staying out of trouble?”

“Trying to, Mr. President.”

“Why don’t you two come on in?” Bartlet suggested. Then he turned to the door and saw Toby still standing there. “Toby, you need something?”

“We had a meeting scheduled for tomorrow and I was wondering if we could do it today, if you had time.” He waved his hand. “I’ll come back some other time.”

“No, no, come on in,” the President said. “CJ, can we go ahead and take care of his thing now instead of tomorrow?”

“Yeah, I don’t see why not,” CJ replied.

“All right, everyone in.”

Debbie stayed behind, of course, but the rest filed into the Oval Office. Sheppard had obviously never been in there before—he had the rather starstruck look of first encounter on his face. The reaction surprised Toby, given what little he knew of the man and his current job. Still, he pulled himself out of wonder quickly enough to sit next to Dr. Weir on one of the sofas. CJ and Toby sat across from them, and the president took his usual place in the room. “Toby, as you can see, Dr. Weir and Colonel Sheppard have returned from the Pegasus galaxy,” Bartlet said. “Danny Concannon got the story, and we’re disclosing the Stargate before Christmas. I’m going to need a speech.”

Slowly, Toby nodded. “You’ll have a draft by the end of the day.”

“Toby,” said CJ, “there’s no need to rush this. The language will have to go through a lot of people, but we don’t have to have it done this week.”

“CJ,” he replied, “when my brother told me where he was going for a year, it took him two minutes to convince me that he wasn’t talking about the space shuttle Atlantis. It took less than that for me to get started on this speech. You thought I hadn’t started it yet? This is the speech every writer dreams of writing.” He turned his attention back to the President. “You’ll have a draft by the end of the day.”

“Good,” President Bartlet replied. “You should get on that.”

“Yes, sir.”

Toby left quietly, and the others waited until the door had shut before they continued talking. “Sir,” Elizabeth asked, “what’s the timetable on this?”

“We’re widening the circle this week,” Bartlet replied.

“There are quite a few members of Congress who would be unhappy finding out about this in the _Washington Post_ ,” CJ added.

“I’d imagine they all would.”

“True.”

“I’m not going to need you two back here until tomorrow afternoon,” Bartlet continued. “I’m meeting with some of the top-ranking officials of the SGC tomorrow, both past and present. Obviously the both of you are included in that group. We’ll be talking about hearings.”

“Hearings?” John repeated.

“We’re anticipating that at least one Congressional committee is going to be holding hearings into this,” CJ answered, “either about how this was kept a secret, or getting into the leadership of Stargate Command. Most of you aren’t that familiar with Congressional procedure. Present company excluded,” she added, with a nod at Elizabeth. “So after we’ve talked with you, we’ll be talking to the highest tier of people who don’t know already. After that, we’re bringing in legal counsel, so they can prepare adequately.”

“When does Danny publish it?” Elizabeth asked.

“Two weeks from yesterday,” Bartlet replied.

“Dr. Weir, I talked to Danny yesterday,” CJ said. “He’s offered to postpone his interview with you until after the funeral.”

John watched Elizabeth, who took a moment before nodding. “I’d appreciate that.”

“I’ll let him know.”

With a nod from the president, CJ left the room through another door behind John and Elizabeth. As it closed, Bartlet asked, “Elizabeth, when’s the funeral?”

“Saturday,” she replied.

“At Arlington?”

“Yes, sir.”

The president stood, and they rose with him. “Well,” he said, “I’m sure you’ve got lots of things to do, so I won’t keep you around.”

“Yes, sir,” Elizabeth said once more, though she smiled this time. “We knew there wasn’t going to be food in my house, but I don’t think either of us realized until this morning that there wasn’t any coffee.”

Bartlet laughed. “Tell Debbie I said to give you some coffee before you leave,” he said.

Elizabeth headed toward the door, and John started to follow her, but Bartlet said, “Colonel, can I have a word?”

Elizabeth glanced at him, but headed out of the room without him, closing the door behind her. “Yes, sir?” John prompted.

Bartlet put his hands in his pockets. “How’s she doing?”

“Not bad, all things considered,” John replied. “I never really know what to expect from her in a situation like this, though.”

“She’s like a daughter to me, John,” the president said. “I hate watching her go through this.”

“I hate watching it too.”

Bartlet turned back to his desk and picked up his glasses. “You two should come over for dinner tonight.”

John knew enough about politics to know that one did not refuse a presidential request. “Thank you, sir. I’ll let Elizabeth know,” he replied.

“All right. You ought to get yourself some coffee.”

“Thank you, Mr. President.”

* * *

_Bartlet Family Farm_  
Manchester, New Hampshire  
Ten years earlier 

It never failed to amaze Jed that Christmas could be so stressful. When the girls were younger, they were great until Christmas morning, and then they would let loose once they got their presents. Abbey had always had work to go back to, but while he was teaching, he’d be stuck with the girls and their antics for a while, and he was always grateful when school started up again.

Things had actually been all right this year, until he’d picked up the phone and called Elizabeth Weir, figuring she’d like to be around some people when she’d just put her father in a nursing home. When he told Abbey and the girls what he’d done, silence had fallen over the dinner table, and his oldest daughter had excused herself early.

Liz had never particularly warmed to Elizabeth. When Jed was completely honest with himself, he understood why. He’d met Elizabeth Weir three months after Liz had graduated and gotten married. It had undoubtedly looked like he was trying to replace his daughter Elizabeth with another woman with the same name and age, only with his interests and career.

Ellie, at a precocious seventeen, had once explained that to him, saying that she didn’t really understand how he didn’t realize it earlier. Now, of course, he just wished they’d all get past that. He knew the others hadn’t had the chance to get to know Elizabeth as well as he had, but by now he figured they’d see there was good reason to befriend her.

So it was that a few days after Christmas, Jed got out of bed and wandered to the kitchen, getting a glass of water. He headed into the next room and stood at a window, and it wasn’t long before he heard someone step into the room. “Jed?”

“Abbey,” he answered, turning away from the window to see her in the doorway. “Did I wake you?”

She nodded. “You having trouble sleeping?”

“A little. I don’t need anything for it.”

Abbey watched him for a moment. “Liz called while you were out today,” she said. “I forgot to tell you. She and Doug and Annie made it back home all right.”

Jed nodded. “I still don’t see why they had to leave in the first place.”

“Jed, you know exactly why they left,” Abbey snapped. “It’s because you invited your little protégé over for a family Christmas!”

“Oh, for crying out loud, this is over Elizabeth?” he retorted. “You’ve got to be kidding me—what has she ever done to you?”

“Don’t play dumb with me,” she said. “You’ve paid more attention to her in the last six years than you have your own daughters.”

Jed stared at her, dumbfounded. “I have not!” he replied. “I made a couple phone calls to get her name in places, but I have not been ignoring my daughters to push her career along.”

“And her father was a Cabinet Secretary. You don’t think he should be calling in favors for his daughter himself instead of letting a New England governor do it?”

“Her father can’t.”

“And why not?”

“He has Alzheimer’s, Abbey,” he said, setting his glass down. “He can’t even remember her, let alone help her career.”

Abbey crossed her arms over her chest, looking very dangerous. “There are rumors about her,” she said. “Rumors about you and her.”

This late at night, Jed actually had to think about that for a moment before he realized what she was insinuating. “That’s out of line, Abbey,” he said in a low voice.

“I don’t think it is, Jed,” she replied.

“Abbey,” he said, voice rising along with his anger, “accuse me of neglecting my daughters and my granddaughter. Accuse me of interfering with her career and pushing her ahead when she might not deserve it. But _do not_ accuse me of having an affair with a woman young enough to be my daughter!”

“Would it be all right if she were older?” Abbey asked dryly. “I’m going back to bed.”

Without another word, she left, and Jed stood there for a while, silently fuming. Finally he slammed a newspaper onto the table and headed back into the kitchen. When he turned on the lights, he found a shocked Elizabeth Weir standing by the sink.

Judging from how wide her eyes were, Jed figured she’d heard quite a lot of that argument. While he walked up and refilled his glass, she stammered, “Sir, I—I didn’t mean to—I’m—”

“It’s okay, Elizabeth,” he interrupted.

“I just came in for a glass of milk,” she explained, while he retreated to the breakfast table. “I would have left, but I didn’t want you to know I’d heard any of it.”

“It’s okay,” he repeated. “It’s not like this is the first time Abbey and I have fought.”

She stood stock still for a while, until she lowered her eyes to the floor. “I think I should leave in the morning, Governor,” she said, very quietly.

“Oh, don’t be ridiculous, Elizabeth.”

“I don’t think I am,” she replied, pulling her robe a little tighter around herself. “I’m obviously causing a lot of tension here.”

“You are _not_ causing a lot of tension here,” Jed countered. “There’s always a lot of tension here.”

When Elizabeth frowned, he shook his head. “You’ll understand this someday,” he continued. “Someday you’ll meet someone who’ll drive you absolutely crazy, always challenging you to be better. And you’ll know it’s because he loves you, and you’ll do the same for him because you love him.” She still looked confused, so he rose and set his glass in the sink. “You’ll get it someday.”

She took a step back. “You love her very much.”

“I do,” he answered, without hesitation.

After a moment’s awkward pause, he said, “You’re my guest in my house, Elizabeth. You’re welcome to stay as long as you like.”

He left without another word. In the morning, Elizabeth had decided to stay.

* * *

To no one’s surprise, the election had not been called by the time people got up and went to work on Wednesday morning. There was plenty of buzz about power outages in Oregon and ballot problems in Illinois, so the press had plenty to occupy themselves with. Accordingly, no one noticed when three Air Force generals, a colonel, and a diplomat came in the northwest lobby. Nor did anyone take note of them long enough to think it strange that they were escorted into the White House Situation Room.

The situation room was one of the few places in the White House to which Elizabeth had never been invited before this. From the looks of it, she was the least comfortable being in there. Even John seemed more in his element than she was. But its dark walls and almost intimate lighting, along with the data screens on the far wall, made her feel very out of place. It was standing on the bridge of the _Daedalus_ again. “I feel like I shouldn’t be in here,” she said. “I don’t think my security clearance is this high.”

“What is there to keep secure, Doctor?” Jack asked. He waved toward the back wall. “There’s a map of North America.”

Elizabeth rolled her eyes. “How clever of you, General.”

What rebuttal he had in mind was forestalled when the double doors opened. “Ten-hut!” cried the man at the door, and the four military men all snapped to attention.

“Keep your seats,” the president said, but as he came in he glanced around in amusement. “Well, you could have sat down before I came in.”

“We just arrived ourselves, sir,” Hammond replied.

Bartlet came up to the head of the table, with CJ Cregg behind him. “Well, have a seat, folks.”

“Is there assigned seating?” John asked.

The three generals all glared at him, but the President took it in stride. “That’s not a bad idea,” he said. “CJ, you can have your usual seat. Elizabeth, you sit on this side.”

He then proceeded to direct the Air Force men into seats, and Elizabeth was mildly amused that John was ordered into a chair on the other side of the table. “As you know,” he began, “disclosing the Stargate program is inevitably going to cause any number of political ramifications. I’ve called this group together today because you are the ones most likely to be called before a Congressional hearing into both how and why the Stargate was kept a secret, and into your records as leaders of the SGC.”

“Then why is Colonel Sheppard here?” Elizabeth asked.

“We think there’s a big chance that the committee is going to call him too,” CJ answered. “In part because he’s on Earth and they’d actually be able to subpoena him reasonably, but also as commander of the Atlantis military contingent.”

Elizabeth nodded. “All right.”

“We’re expecting the House and Senate Foreign Relations committees to hold a joint hearing into the matter,” CJ continued. “We’re informing the members of those committees on Saturday evening. But right now, we need to talk about legal counsel for all of you.”

Elizabeth glanced over at John when CJ mentioned the day of the funeral, and found him watching her too. It was only when Jack, on John’s right, spoke up that she looked away. “Why do we need lawyers?” he asked.

“Congressional hearings are… unpleasant,” CJ replied. “Trust me, you’re going to want a lawyer.”

“Especially you, General O’Neill,” Elizabeth added. When he looked at her quizzically, she gave him a small smile and said, “I’ve read your file.”

“Yeah, but why me especially?”

“You’re the last person of any importance who was involved in the first mission through the Stargate,” she said, leaning forward and resting her arms on the table. “Catherine Langford died several months ago, and General West died several years ago of lung cancer. Your second-in-command from that mission has been dead for years too. You’re the only one who can answer why you took a nuclear weapon with you through the gate. And trust me, they’re going to ask you that.”

“Careful, Doctor,” said Landry, two seats down on her right. “Can’t run around giving legal advice when you’re not a lawyer.”

“She is, sir,” John replied. “I keep wondering why I’m still on speaking terms with her when she’s a lawyer.”

“We’re not all the spawn of Satan, John. I keep trying to tell you that,” she said. “Anyway, yes, General Landry, I’m a lawyer. I got my license here in the district.”

“Are we done?” Bartlet interjected.

Elizabeth almost jumped, turning her attention back to her left. “Sorry, sir,” she said. “I think we should talk to Jordan Kendall. She’s worked as special counsel on matters of some delicacy before.”

“That’s a good idea,” CJ said. “She can probably advise us on other lawyers who’d be able to handle this.”

“Just out of curiosity,” Elizabeth said, “who’s chairing House Foreign Relations these days?”

“Andrea Wyatt,” Bartlet replied.

Elizabeth winced.

“She’s a Democrat, isn’t she?” Hammond asked. After Elizabeth, CJ, and the President all nodded, he continued, “Well, isn’t there a good chance that she’ll support what this administration has done?”

“You must not know much about Andi Wyatt, General,” Bartlet replied. “The only thing we can count on is that she’ll do whatever she feels like doing.”


	5. Chapter 5

John had once before been in Arlington National Cemetery, visiting the graves of friends before shipping out to Antarctica. He had almost been overwhelmed by the sight of row after row of white headstones, the graves of those who had served their country. Now he felt much the same.

It was desperately cold. Next to him, Elizabeth made no effort not to cry as she stepped forward and laid down a bouquet of flowers, or as the American flag that had been draped over her father’s casket was folded and presented to her. When the honor guard fired their salute, she didn’t flinch.

They stayed near the grave for a while as guests came to Elizabeth to offer condolences. It was all a bit of a blur, as the cold was getting distracting. John was surprised by how many people showed up for the service, though from the stories he heard in that short time, he realized it wasn’t strange at all. Even CJ Cregg had come, bringing the condolences of the White House. William Weir had been well respected in Washington, and there were many who were sorry at his passing.

But the most surprising of all approached after nearly everyone else was gone. “Hi, Liz,” said Danny Concannon.

“Danny,” Elizabeth replied, before she turned around.

“I don’t know what to say,” the reporter continued. “I’m sorry. I hope you don’t mind that I came.”

“No, of course not,” she said. “I’m… glad you did. Dad always thought you were one of the best journalists he’d ever encountered.”

“Well, hey, if there’s anything you need…”

Elizabeth nodded. “Thank you.”

Then, to John’s surprise and Danny’s as well, Elizabeth suddenly closed the distance between them and hugged him briefly. “Thank you,” she repeated, pulling away.

Danny glanced uncertainly at John, as John laid a gloved hand on Elizabeth’s back. “I’ll see you Monday, Elizabeth,” Danny said.

She nodded, and Danny walked away, heading down a hill. Elizabeth turned around and grasped John’s hand. “Let’s go for a walk,” she said, as the first flakes of snow began to fall.

They wandered a little way between the rows of tombstones until they reached a memorial not far from the amphitheater. On a stone slab was a plaque, on which were engraved the images of the seven who had died in the Challenger accident. Elizabeth pulled her hand out of John’s grasp and reached out to touch one of the faces. “They were so unknown,” she said. “And then they got the adventure of a lifetime, and they died for it.”

“Sounds familiar,” John replied, slipping his arm around her waist. Snow was beginning to stick to the cold metal on the memorial as Elizabeth drew her hand back.

“The same thing’s going to happen to us, John,” she continued. “In ten days, everyone in the world is going to recognize us. We’re not going to be anonymous anymore.”

“Would you rather be?” he asked.

“I wish this weren’t happening now,” Elizabeth replied. “I wish it weren’t happening right now, right after Dad dying.”

Wordlessly, John wrapped his arms around her, feeling her strain just a little to rest her chin on his shoulder as she slipped one arm around him. She still held the flag in her other hand, now pressed between them. For a long time they remained like that, still as the monuments around them while the snow grew heavier. She didn’t start to cry, but she was holding him so tightly that he wondered if she was just trying to keep control over herself. It was getting colder; above the heavy cloud cover, the sun was beginning to set. In the distance, John thought he heard a siren.

Then Elizabeth shifted in his arms, taking a deep, shuddering breath and brushing her fingers across the back of his hair. “I love you so much,” she whispered.

For half a moment, his whole body tensed. That phrase had terrified him once upon a time. But there was something so open, honest, and raw in Elizabeth’s confession that he couldn’t help but relax, hold her a little tighter, and kiss the base of her neck. He knew her well enough now to know that she didn’t need to hear the words in reply, that she already knew he worshipped her. But he told her all the same.

* * *

In the early evening, Abbey found herself watching television in the Residence, something that was a little unusual for her. It was on CNN when she turned it on, and she didn’t bother changing the channel.

A while later, Jed appeared in the room, already in his tuxedo. “Hey,” he said, “you going to get ready for the thing?”

Abbey reached up and grabbed his hand. “Do we have to go?”

“Have to congratulate Santos,” he replied. “It’ll just be for an hour or so.”

Abbey pushed herself up from the sofa and walked over to the television. “What are they talking about on the news?” Jed asked.

“Those eleventh-hour court appointments you could make,” she replied, heading to the next room to change into an evening gown. “They’ve spotted Elizabeth coming into the West Wing and think you’re appointing her to the second circuit.”

“Not a bad idea,” he called. “She’d make a good judge.”

“She’s a little young.”

“She’s old enough to be president,” he replied. “That’s a depressing thought.”

“Didn’t you want to make her Secretary of State or something?” Abbey asked.

“Undersecretary,” Jed answered. He walked up to the doorway between the two rooms. “Undersecretary for non-proliferation. She would have been good, too.”

“She made a good professor,” Abbey replied. “That was why she turned you down, right? She’d just taken the job at Georgetown.”

“Yeah, but that boyfriend you set her up with probably had something to do with it.”

He wandered away, avoiding Abbey’s annoyed glare. “There is nothing wrong with Simon Wallis, Jed.”

“He was a nice guy, sure, but that was a terrible relationship, and I told you not to set her up with him,” he said. “They fought more than we do.”

“What’s your point?”

She appeared in the main room, dressed in a low-cut gown of aged gold, and it took Jed a minute to formulate a response. “He wanted her to stop what she was doing and stay home. I didn’t think that was very fair. It’s not like they were married with six kids.”

Abbey held up a hand as she walked across the room to get her shoes. “I’m not getting into this with you.”

“Why’d you set her up with him anyway?” Jed asked. “You didn’t seem to like her much then.”

She stopped, staring down at her shoes. “I don’t really know.”

* * *

_The White House  
Eight years earlier_

When Liz had had her first baby, she’d been living just a few minutes away from Jed and Abbey, and Abbey had been able to be around for almost everything about Annie. This second pregnancy was harder, with Liz in New Hampshire and Abbey in Washington. But she managed to be up there for the baby’s birth, and two weeks later she returned. Jed had gone up there for only two days. This president business was taking some getting used to.

Abbey headed toward the Oval Office as soon as she got into the building, hoping to find Jed in there. Instead, she found Mrs. Landingham at her desk in the outer office, and the door to the Oval was closed. Upon her entrance, Mrs. Landingham looked up and stood. “Hello, Mrs. Bartlet,” she said. “How was your trip?”

“Oh, it’s never long enough,” Abbey replied.

“Do you have pictures of the baby?” Mrs. Landingham asked.

“I thought you’d never ask,” said Abbey, smiling as she pulled an envelope out of her purse.

Mrs. Landingham took the pictures eagerly and began to talk about how beautiful the boy was, but Abbey’s attention was soon drawn to the television on one side of the room. They were showing images of what looked to be a hostage situation, and as the camera panned across faces, dirty and bruised, Abbey suddenly recognized one. It was Elizabeth Weir.

“Mrs. Landingham,” she said, “what’s going on?”

The secretary looked up from the baby pictures. “Oh, they finally resolved the hostage crisis in the Philippines,” she replied. “I’m sure the president told you about it.”

“He didn’t,” said Abbey. “He didn’t say anything about it. What happened?”

“Dr. Weir was leading a group of NGOs into the Philippines,” Mrs. Landingham said. “Doctors Without Borders, I believe. They were captured two weeks ago by a small force of rebels in the mountains.”

Abbey stood there, staring at the screen as the camera zoomed in on Elizabeth. She kept expecting to feel a surge of dislike, but it wasn’t coming. Instead, she was listening to the young woman talking about getting back into the country to finish the job she had been asked to do, even though her arm was broken, her knee was injured, and a doctor was bandaging a gash on her neck. This was not the headstrong, brash girl Jed had befriended, nor someone who would be using him to advance her own career.

The amazing part, though, was that Abbey wasn’t surprised by that.

She stood there, uncomfortably looking for anything else to focus on. Over the last two years, despite how busy they’d been with the campaign and everything else, she’d spent a lot of time trying to figure out where exactly Elizabeth stood with her and her family. It was so hard for Abbey to admit being wrong, but two years earlier, it had been obvious. Her only concession had been to walk away when she did, realizing that Jed was watching Elizabeth go through what his daughters would someday see. Someday, multiple sclerosis would cause him many of the same memory problems that the early phases of Alzheimer’s disease had brought to Elizabeth’s father.

And despite Abbey’s dislike, Elizabeth had not backed down.

It was uncomfortable pity that had staved off her comments, but Abbey had no explanation for what else had happened in the meantime. Somehow, in the rush of the last two years, Elizabeth Weir had impressed her. And now, watching Elizabeth risking her own safety to help a group of doctors, Abbey couldn’t help but feel a little proud of her. It was as if she actually _liked_ Elizabeth.

“Mrs. Landingham,” she asked, “where’s the president?”

“He’s in the situation room,” said the secretary, handing back the photographs. “I believe he was intending to go straight to the Residence after he’s done with Admiral Fitzwallace.”

Abbey smiled. “Thank you.”

She left then, stepping out to the portico to take the shortcut to the Residence. There she turned on the television and began watching as much as she could about the situation in the Philippines. As she watched, she started feeling more and more annoyed that she hadn’t known about this earlier.

An hour later, the door creaked. “Abbey, you still up?”

“Yeah.” She stood up from the sofa to face her husband. “You look like you haven’t slept in a week.”

“Not sure I have,” Jed replied. “How are Liz and the baby?”

“They’re fine. Liz isn’t very happy that you had to leave so quickly.”

Jed loosened his tie and took his jacket off. “She’s lucky I got to come at all,” he said. “This thing in the Philippines…”

“Speaking of this thing in the Philippines,” said Abbey, “why the hell didn’t you tell me Elizabeth Weir had been kidnapped?”

He sat down on the bed and looked at her oddly. “You didn’t know?” he asked.

“Not surprisingly, Jed, I was paying attention to my grandchildren,” she replied. “We talked at least once a day. Why didn’t you tell me what was going on?”

“Well, first I assumed, and was evidently wrong, that you would pick up a newspaper at some point,” he said, taking his shoes off. “When you never brought it up, I assumed you didn’t want to talk about it.”

“Two years ago that woman went to Christmas mass with us, and now you think I wouldn’t care that she spent two weeks held hostage?” Abbey demanded.

“Two years ago you almost accused me of having an affair with ‘that woman,’ Abigail.” Surprisingly, Jed looked more confused than anything else, like a puppy just kicked by his master. “You telling me you care what happens to her now?”

“She’s doing good work, Jed,” Abbey replied, feeling very cross. “I can respect that.”

He didn’t answer, but as they got ready for bed, she saw a smile on his face. “You haven’t won,” she said, climbing into bed with him and turning out a lamp.

“I know,” he replied, following suit. “Just don’t set her up with a cardiologist, okay?”

* * *

When evening fell, Elizabeth was still dressed in black, though she had washed her face and reapplied her makeup. Down in the situation room, she almost blended in with the dark walls, and for once she didn’t mind the effect. She didn’t want to be working, really. She wanted John to take her somewhere and do something to get her mind off of everything that had happened since they’d returned to Earth, but this time on Earth was, unfortunately, anything but a vacation.

The door opened, and she turned to see another woman enter the room. It was hardly surprising to see Jordan Kendall in a black pants suit, probably Armani, even though it was a Saturday evening. Three steps into the room, Jordan stopped. The door closed behind her, and she said, “Elizabeth? I’m sorry; am I in the wrong place?”

Elizabeth shook her head and stood at the foot of the table. Jordan walked to the other end. “It’s good to see you again, Jordan,” she said.

“You too,” Jordan replied. “Though I must say, I’m a little surprised. CJ didn’t tell me who I was meeting with, and the general buzz around town is that the president’s appointing you to the second circuit court of appeals.”

Elizabeth smiled and glanced down at the table. “You know, I think that might be worse than my current assignment.”

Jordan smiled too. “So who’s been killed this time?” she asked.

The younger woman blinked, considerably confused. “I’m sorry?”

“The last time I was in here, Leo was telling me that the president had had someone assassinated,” Jordan explained.

“Well, I think this may top that, actually,” Elizabeth replied. She started to come around the table. “You may want to sit down.”

Jordan did so, and Elizabeth ran her fingers over the backs of chairs as she walked by. She’d been thinking about how to say this, but none of her pretty phrases and facts were coming to mind anymore. “We have evidence of alien life,” she blurted out instead. Jordan’s jaw dropped. “Not only that, we’ve made contact with human life on other planets. And I’ve been living in another galaxy for over two years now.”

Jordan’s eyebrows shot up, and she touched her forehead. “Well, yes, I’d say that tops an assassination.”

Elizabeth almost smiled. “Thought so.”

“All right,” said Jordan, “break this down for me.”

“There’s a lot of technology that I’m not fully qualified to explain,” Elizabeth replied, taking a seat next to the older woman, “but you’ll be getting a full briefing on Monday.”

“Why?”

“Why what?” Elizabeth asked, shaking her head.

“Why am I learning any of this?” Jordan clarified.

“Oh,” said Elizabeth. “Because a reporter found out.”

* * *

Elizabeth had ditched John—well, not exactly ditched, as someone had come to escort her and not him to the situation room—in the communications bullpen, an area that seemed to have far more activity than was reasonable for a Saturday night. There were four or five women working in the room, along with a couple guys. Normally he would have tried to make small talk with the girls, but they seemed rather busy. It took too much of his concentration to stay out of the way and avoid getting run over by the constant stream of people in and out to do any kind of talking.

Finally, a pretty redhead stopped long enough to look at him. “Colonel?” she said.

“Yes, ma’am?” he replied.

“Please, it’s Ginger,” she said. “Do you know how long you’re going to be around?”

“Haven’t got a clue,” said John. “Elizabeth—sorry; Dr. Weir didn’t know how long her meeting was going to be.”

“Well, you could wait in Toby’s office,” Ginger suggested. “You could at least sit down in there.”

“Would Toby mind?” John asked.

The redhead shrugged. “He’s not here.”

“Okay.” John turned around, but then came around again. “Which one is Toby’s office?”  
Ginger walked away from her desk and opened the left-hand door behind John. “This one.”

“Thanks.”

In the dark office, John soon found himself confronted with three temptations—a comfortable couch, a television with cable access, and a bouncy ball—and succumbed to each in turn. Sprawled out in a manner most undignified, especially given his attire, he found live coverage of a sporting event and was soon bouncing the ball off the wall between a window into the next room and the door.

The game was in overtime when the door suddenly opened. The ball had just slipped out of John’s hand, and as Toby Ziegler walked into his office, he was whacked in the side of the head with it. It went flying off into the communications bullpen, and John sat up slowly. Toby turned and looked at John. “What the hell are you doing in my office?”

Hastily, John stood, picking up his hat and turning the television off. “Someone out there told me I could wait in here,” he explained, waving in the general direction of the door.

“Why?”

“Why what?”

“Why are you waiting?”

“Oh.” John glanced around. “Waiting for my girlfriend. She’s in the sit room.”

“Your girlfriend,” Toby prompted.

“Elizabeth Weir.”

“Oh, right,” said the older man. “You’re that guy from the thing.”

John blinked. This guy was a speech writer?

“Well, whatever Ginger told you,” Toby continued, “you can’t wait in here. I’ve got a meeting in about two minutes.”

John nodded, offered an apology, and headed out of the room, looking a little more rumpled than he had upon entering. Ginger offered him a sympathetic smile as he resumed his attempt to remain unobtrusive, but soon a woman with very long red hair burst into the room, looking like she was ready to kill the first person in sight. “Is he in there?” she demanded of the secretary, who offered a terrified affirmative. As abruptly as she had entered, the furious woman opened the door to Toby’s office and slammed it behind herself.

Glancing at Ginger, John saw her eyebrows raised. But before either could say anything, they heard a high-pitched scream that could have well broken some windows. John chose not to comment.

The arguing got worse, if that were at all possible, before CJ Cregg entered the room a few minutes later. She looked through the window, partially obscured by Venetian blinds. “I see Congresswoman Wyatt found Toby,” she commented.

“ _That’s_ the woman you were all worried about the other night?” John asked.

“Yep, that’s Andrea Wyatt. She does this occasionally,” CJ replied, flipping through a folder.

John glanced back and forth between CJ and the door uneasily. “A Congresswoman comes in here to yell at a speech writer?”

“Yeah, that’s what happens when you’re divorced, I hear.” She looked up from her papers. “Colonel, why don’t you come to my office?”

John followed her out of the area, through an oblong room with a painting of Teddy Roosevelt, and into a small, dark office with four doors. To his surprise, Elizabeth was standing in the room with a woman who could well have been Elizabeth’s older sister. John and CJ entered in the wake of some unheard joke, and John stopped in the doorway for half a heartbeat. Elizabeth was smiling, genuinely smiling, for the first time since he’d woken her up back in Atlantis a week ago.

She looked at him with that wide smile on her face and beckoned him into the room. “John, come meet someone,” she said. As he stepped into the room, CJ shut the door behind him. “This is Jordan Kendall,” Elizabeth explained, gesturing to the third woman in the room. “She was leaving the UN just as I was getting there.”

John shook hands with her. “Nice to meet you, ma’am.”

“Nice to meet you too, Colonel,” Jordan replied.

“And this is John Sheppard,” said Elizabeth.

“Yes, I’d surmised as much,” Jordan said, smirking a little.

“Doctors,” CJ said. Both Elizabeth and Jordan looked over at her. “What have we come up with?”

“Jordan’s agreed to help us out,” said Elizabeth. “Special counsel. She’ll be helping us find others to… join the insanity.”

Jordan folded her arms across herself and leaned against the desk. “I’m going to join the insanity myself, actually,” she said. “I’m going to represent Elizabeth for all this.”

The three others looked at her sharply. “What?” Elizabeth asked.

“You’re going to need a lawyer as much as anyone else,” Jordan replied. “Consider this a thank-you for taking this job in the first place. I have a horrible feeling that I was on the back-up list.”

Elizabeth laughed softly, and behind her the door creaked open. “CJ?” said a woman whose voice was vaguely familiar. “I finally found out who—”

John turned around as the woman stopped, and realized that the woman’s face was as familiar as her voice. “Come on in, Donna,” CJ said. “Dr. Weir, Colonel Sheppard, you remember Donna Moss from the Sydney trip. She’s been working for me now for a few months.”

Donna stepped in cautiously, closing the door behind herself. “This is a fun group,” she commented.

“Can be,” CJ said. “Did you find out who…”

“Senator Canter,” Donna replied immediately. “His office said he’ll call in the morning. And I think Congresswoman Wyatt’s going to be around in a few minutes.”

“Good to know.” CJ turned back to John. “How long had Andi been in Toby’s office when I came through?”

John opened his mouth to answer, but was stopped by a door behind him flying open. The redhead—the angry one, not the cute one—came storming in and announced, “CJ, I’d like to speak with you.”

“There’s a line, I think,” CJ replied.

“This isn’t a time to be flippant, CJ,” the woman protested.

“And I’m not being flippant, Andi,” said the chief of staff. “Colonel, could you close the door?”

John did as he was asked, glancing at Elizabeth and coming around to stand next to her. “What’s going on?” he asked, under his breath.

“I have no idea,” she replied.

But whatever showdown the two women had in mind was stopped by yet another door opening. Through it came another woman, this one more familiar. John was starting to feel a little outnumbered as Abbey Bartlet entered. She didn’t look too pleased, and he could only guess that she’d just found out about the Stargate, as Congresswoman Wyatt clearly had. However, she also seemed rather calm.

Abbey looked around the room. “CJ, Andi, Elizabeth, Donna, let’s get drunk,” she announced.

As Abbey turned around and exited the way she’d come, CJ answered, “Uh, okay, I guess.” She was the first to follow her out of the room.

Elizabeth lingered while the others followed. “Are you going?” John asked, feeling a bit of panic at the thought of being left by himself in this building again.

“I generally do what Mrs. Bartlet tells me to do,” she replied. Then quite suddenly she kissed him. “I’ll try to sneak out as soon as I can.”

Then she disappeared through the door after them, leaving John alone with the lawyer. A few moments later, they heard the president calling into the office. “Colonel Sheppard? Jordan? You in there?”

John stepped up to the mystery door and saw both the president and that crazy British man inside the Oval Office. “Come on in, you two,” Bartlet said, waving them in. He and Jordan stepped inside cautiously. “You didn’t go with Abbey?”

“No, sir, we weren’t invited,” Jordan replied.

“Invited for what?”

“They’re getting drunk, apparently,” said John.

“Yeah, I was afraid of that.”

John cleared his throat. “Sir, the First Lady seems to have taken it well.”

The President looked at him suspiciously. “Ever heard of a slow boil, Colonel?”

* * *

The first bottle was enjoyed. The second was imbibed.

The Residence was not a place to which Donna Moss had been very often—in fact, one of the only other times she’d been up there was while getting drunk with the First Lady a few years earlier. Abbey Bartlet had been mad then, and she was certainly mad now.

Donna could understand the anger. It hadn’t been wholly unreasonable for Abbey to expect her husband to tell her that there was life beyond the planet. Now the First Lady’s indignation was bouncing around a slew of potential targets—it was unfair to the country, unfair to the world, unfair to the staff, unfair to her. Andi Wyatt was a ready ally through the second bottle and the third, and while the two didn’t direct too much of their anger at CJ, the awkwardness there was palpable. And in the middle of all this were Elizabeth and Donna, and Donna had a terrible suspicion that Abbey and Andi had no idea that they had known about the Stargate for months.

Finally, when the diatribe had lulled, the moment of truth arrived, and Abbey got Elizabeth in her sights. “Elizabeth,” she began, a slight slur forming in her speech, “how would you feel if the president brought you into the Oval Office and told you there was human life on other planets?”

Donna sipped her wine as Elizabeth stared at her glass. “Well,” said the diplomat in a soft voice, “I was fairly shocked when he told me.”

Never had an anvil been so delicately dropped.

“Wait a minute,” said Andi, “you _knew_?”

Elizabeth glanced over at CJ, who shrugged. “They’re going to find out most of this in a week anyway,” she said. “I mean, sure, there are a few things we’re not going to tell them, but for the most part they’re going to be reading about it before too long.”

“CJ,” Abbey interrupted.

“Yes, ma’am?”

“Why don’t you tell us instead of telling us about telling us?”

“Mrs. Bartlet,” Elizabeth said, setting her glass on the coffee table, “I’ve been involved with the Stargate program since Admiral Fitzwallace’s death.”

Abbey’s eyes widened, and suddenly she couldn’t focus on anything in the room for very long. “Why?” she finally said.

“I ran the SGC for a few weeks,” Elizabeth said, “before I took over the administration of an Antarctic research site and then an expedition to another galaxy. For the last two years I’ve lived in the lost city of Atlantis.”

Sitting next to each other, Andi and Abbey stared at each other for a moment. “There are expeditions to other galaxies?” Andi said.

“Just one,” Elizabeth replied. “Well, there have been a couple trips to the Asgard home galaxy, but I wouldn’t call them expeditions.”

“Whose home galaxy?” Abbey asked.

“The Asgard,” Elizabeth repeated. “They’re allies.”

“Good,” Abbey said, a caustic edge to her tone, “I’d hate to think Jed’s gone out and made enemies.”

“Mrs. Bartlet,” the diplomat began.

“What the hell does he think he’s doing?” Abbey continued, all but ignoring Elizabeth. “There’s life on other planets. In other galaxies. We’ve had a mode of interstellar travel for ten years. I’m his wife! What gives him in the right to keep this kind of secret from me? And what gives him the right to trust Elizabeth with this before me?”

“Abbey, he had a job for me to do,” Elizabeth said. “I’m sorry that there wasn’t compelling reason to tell you before me, but he had a job for me to do.”

There was something else at play there; Donna could sense it. Abbey Bartlet wasn’t in a habit of opening up to people she didn’t like and respect, but there was unspoken history between her and Elizabeth in the air. With a few more glasses of wine, Donna might forget herself long enough to ask.

“You’re a daughter to him, Elizabeth,” said Abbey. “I don’t pretend to understand why he decided to treat you like that when he had three daughters of his own already, but I’ll let that go. But I’m his wife. He’s supposed to be able to tell me things.”

“Abbey,” Elizabeth began.

Donna shook her head. “This is why he doesn’t tell you things, Mrs. Bartlet,” she interrupted. “You get mad about it and blab classified information to people when you don’t even know that they already know about it.”

Andi had been in the process of pouring herself another glass, but she stopped paying attention to that as Donna spoke. “Donna, are you saying what I think you’re saying?”

“Andi, the wine,” CJ said.

The congresswoman jumped, splashing more wine into a glass that was already mostly full. Narrowing her eyes, she set the bottle down. “Donna, when did you find out about this Stargate?”

Donna looked to CJ, whose head was in her hands. “Go ahead, tell them, I don’t care anymore.”

“Tell us what?” said Abbey.

“The president told me when we were on our way back from the Pacific Rim conference,” she explained. “CJ had me doing a lot of legwork for her, and I was putting the pieces together anyway, so the president just decided to let me know all of it since I’d already figured out that Dr. Weir had been on another planet.”

Elizabeth leaned forward to look around CJ and asked, “Donna, how _did_ you figure that out?”

“Your credit card, mostly.”

Elizabeth looked confused for a moment before realization dawned. “Oh. Okay.”

After that, they started to really get drunk.

* * *

Jordan Kendall had left rather quickly, leaving John in the clutches of Lord Marbury and President Bartlet. Granted, it wasn’t like he had much opportunity to _speak_. Marbury and Bartlet were not men of rhetorical brevity, and John had difficulty getting a word in edgewise. After at least two hours of that, the British ambassador took his leave, and John finally decided that it was time to get back to Elizabeth’s house.

“Sir,” John said, as Marbury departed into the outer office, “I think I need to get Elizabeth home. She’s had a tough day.”

Bartlet stood, taking off his glasses. John rose as well. “You’re taking care of her, John?” he asked.

John nodded. “As far as she’ll let me. It’s been further than usual this week, so… I think she needs it more than usual.”

“Okay.”

He headed toward the door to the outside, since he’d seen Elizabeth go that way earlier. As he approached the door and it was opened from the outside, though, the president said, “Oh, John?”

He turned. “Yes, sir?”

“You ought to marry that girl, you know.”

John blinked several times while Bartlet looked at him quite seriously. In any other situation, Elizabeth would have been there to interpret for him, but for once she was elsewhere and he was floundering. And just as his brain was starting to suggest that this was, perhaps, part of the reason he ought to listen to that advice, the president chuckled and waved at the door. “Go on. I’ll see you later.”

Considerably confused and unsettled, John did as he was told.

Several minutes later he was wandering through the building, and while he was still wondering how serious the president had been, he heard the sound of women giggling not too far away. He heard the timbre of Elizabeth’s laugh mingling with others, and John followed the sound.

He found her in what looked like a wide hallway, having shed her jacket and sitting on the arm of a sofa. Donna was curled up, catlike, next to CJ, and that redhead—looking less angry now—was sitting with Abbey on the other sofa. It was the First Lady who noticed his entry, and as the laughter died down, she said, “John, how’d you find us?”

“Followed the noise,” he replied.

At the sound of his voice, Elizabeth looked over at him. Her face was flushed, and she handed her glass to Donna. “I’m sorry. I said I was coming back to you in a few minutes, but then Abbey started talking about how it was unfair that she didn’t know about the Stargate before tonight and—”

John laid a finger over her mouth. “You’re babbling, Elizabeth.”

Andi sat up a little straighter and looked at John with an appraising eye. “Does he know about the thing too?” she asked.

“This is Lieutenant Colonel John Sheppard, Andi,” Abbey replied. “He’s been in another galaxy with Elizabeth for the last two years.”

Elizabeth hadn’t taken her eyes off John. “He’s my military advisor and second-in-command,” she said.

“He’s cute,” said Andi. John just blinked.

Meanwhile, Abbey seemed to be collecting herself down at the other end of the couch. “Well, I don’t see how you two sleep at night, knowing what you know,” she said.

Elizabeth smirked, and not at all in the subtle way she usually would, as she put her hands on his shoulders and pulled him closer. “Well, dealing with John all day usually wears me out,” she said, before grabbing him by the back of the neck and kissing him.

He’d had a half-second window in which to get away, but he didn’t move quickly enough. John soon found himself in a less-than-objectionable position, with his mouth wholly occupied with Elizabeth’s. But it was unheard of for her to be that affectionate in front of others unless life-or-death were involved, and John quickly extricated himself. “You drunk?” he asked.

Eyes wide, she nodded. “I’ve lost count of how many bottles we’ve been through.”

She turned to retrieve her wine glass, but John lifted it away from her. “Well, you’ve been up here for a long time,” he said.

“Hey, give that back to her,” CJ protested.

“The woman’s had a hard enough day without you taking away the alcohol,” Abbey said.

Glaring at the women, John downed what was left in the glass and set it on the coffee table. “Elizabeth, it’s two in the morning,” he said. “You need sleep.”

To his shock, she actually pouted. “You’re no fun.”

John picked up her jacket and put it on her, with only a little help from her. Then he kissed her forehead and dragged her off the sofa. “Just returning the favor.”


	6. Chapter 6

There was something very soft and ethereal about the master bedroom of Elizabeth’s house in the morning. It had occurred to John once or twice that it was because he was so unused to waking up in a bedroom—not someone’s quarters, but a real bedroom in an actual house—that it all had a dreamlike quality to it, but in the early hours of the morning, he was content to believe it was because of the chiffon hung on the windows and draped lazily on the four-poster bed.

But John was surprised when he woke up and Elizabeth wasn’t there. Instead, he’d pulled her pillow to his chest; whether for the warmth or just the smell of her, he didn’t know. He rolled to his back and pushed himself up on one elbow, trying to remember if they had any reason to get out of bed before noon. Then, realizing that he didn’t know if it _was_ afternoon, he said, “Lizabeth?”

He got no response, and a quick scan of the room confirmed that she had left. Dreading the result just a little, he glanced at the clock and saw that it wasn’t quite a quarter to seven yet. That explained why it was still so dark in the room, at least. He tossed the blankets aside and swung his legs over the side of the bed, glad now that he’d managed to get out of uniform and into a pair of soft, lightweight pants. He might have been exhausted the night before, but he was freezing now.

He wandered out of the bedroom, feeling rather groggy and wondering how in the world Elizabeth had made it out of bed. Perhaps that was why he felt compelled to head downstairs and find her. She’d been surprisingly drunk the night before, and he had no idea how she handled more than a glass or two of wine.

Had he been better rested, he might have laughed when he finally found Elizabeth. She was in the kitchen, but she wasn’t basking in the way the room was filling with the greyness of the moments just before dawn. She was drinking a cup of coffee, and doing so while sitting on the counter between the sink and the coffee maker.

“Elizabeth?”

He spoke softly, in an effort not to disturb her much, but she was already turning her head toward the entry, as though she sensed him. Knowing her, she had. John leaned against the doorpost, though, and said, “Isn’t it awfully early to be up?”

“Almost seven,” Elizabeth replied.

“And we didn’t leave the White House until two in the morning last night.” John stood up straighter and rubbed his hand across the back of his head. “There’s a sentence I never thought I’d say.”

With a brief and gentle glance, she beckoned him nearer. He approached her and laid his hand on her knee. Under his broad palm, her skin was cold, and he started to run his hands up and down her thighs to give her some warmth. “How are you feeling?” he asked, hoping it was innocuous enough.

“Like I want to strangle Abbey Bartlet just a little,” she replied, smirking just a little. “How drunk was I last night?”

“You tried to accost me.”

Elizabeth started to laugh, but then winced. “No being funny, John, not while my head is pounding like this.”

“Did you take something for it?”

“Yes.”

John skimmed his hand upward over her body, and he lightly caressed her cheek. “I’m sorry,” he said. “You were pretty drunk last night. You kissed me in front of the First Lady.”

“I was afraid of that.” Elizabeth set her coffee mug aside and spread her legs to let him step a little closer. “How foolish was I?”

“Well, Mrs. Bartlet and that redhead seemed more out of it than you were,” he replied. “What’s-her-name—Wyatt?—called me cute.”

As he moved both of his hands to her back, Elizabeth lifted one hand to the back of his neck and started tracing light circles with her fingernails. “She has good taste,” she whispered.

John narrowed his eyes. Elizabeth didn’t usually act like this unless she were stressed. “How long have you been up?” he asked.

“About an hour,” she replied, retrieving her coffee and sipping at it. “This is what I do when I get that drunk. I wake up after a couple hours and deal with the worst of it before going back to bed.”

He chuckled a bit. “How much coffee have you had?”

“Not enough,” she replied, curling her nose up. “But the plan is to get back to sleep at some point.”

“Always thinking ahead, aren’t you?”

“Apparently not far enough.”

John frowned. “What do you mean?”

“Well, I’m wishing I hadn’t had so much to drink.”

“Every girl needs to get drunk with the First Lady at least one in her life.”

Elizabeth smiled down at her coffee. “I guess I needed the distraction last night.”

He leaned in and kissed her forehead. “I’m not distracting enough?”

“I’m going to need you to be,” she replied softly, not making eye contact with him. “I won’t pretend the next few weeks are going to be easy. I won’t pretend with you—I never really could anyway—but I’m going to need you through all this.”

“Hey,” John replied, touching her cheek and drawing her gaze up. “You have me. You have for a long time.” When she opened her mouth but said nothing, John kissed her again, this time lingering at her lips. “I love you. I may hate what we have to do in the next month, but I’ll still love you when we’re done.”

Instead of looking reassured, Elizabeth seemed unsettled. “Politics can do strange things to a person,” she said. “The games politicians play can swallow you. You come in hating everything partisan, but after a while you start to see that if you play along instead of taking the high road, you can get things so much more easily. That kind of power… it can destroy you. And I’ve seen too many good men and women get taken in by it.”

On any other morning, John would have said something flippant, something to put her at ease, but not now. There was a kind of beautiful sadness in her voice, and he didn’t know how to answer her. At least, not in any direct way. Instead, he took the coffee mug from her and helped her down from the counter. “Come back to bed,” he said. “It’s empty without you.”

John wrapped his arm around her, and Elizabeth leaned against him as they headed to the stairs. She was smiling wistfully, as though she knew the feeling.

* * *

On Monday, Danny Concannon got the interview of a lifetime.

It was simple enough: he met Elizabeth in CJ’s office and immediately regretted not putting the interview off even further. She looked better than she had at the funeral, of course, but he hadn’t seen her take something this hard since her father had first been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease. That night was one of the only times he’d seen her cry, and he’d practically rocked her to sleep that night when she broke down.

But Danny’s publisher was chomping at the bit to get her hands on this interview. Apparently his column—already written—about the SGC and its personnel wasn’t enough. Of course, Danny knew that Elizabeth was really the biggest fish of all in this. She might not run the program, but she was the perfect character in this tale.

As he pondered this, however, he suddenly noticed that both Elizabeth and CJ were staring at him. “Danny?” CJ prompted.

He shook himself out of it. “You’re looking well, Elizabeth,” he said.

They were standing across the room from each other, and she smiled wryly. “I always could fool you.”

“Well, if you two are ready to do this, I’ll just take off,” CJ remarked.

Danny barely glanced at her before looking back at Elizabeth. “Okay.”

Without another word, CJ left the room, using the door into the Oval Office. Elizabeth watched her go, and then took a seat in one of the chairs in front of CJ’s desk. “Is there a reason she’s jealous?”

“Who, CJ?” Danny asked, sitting down. “Nah. Maybe. Probably.”

The woman smiled slowly. “Did you date her?”

“Oh, don’t you get started,” he replied. “Yeah. Sort of. It was a few years ago, and she’d randomly grab me and kiss me.”

Elizabeth raised a brow. “When she was press secretary?”

“Yeah, that’s why it never really got past that.”

Then she burst out laughing, the kind of laugh Danny hadn’t heard from her in fifteen years. “Tell me, Danny,” she said, “have you ever been seriously interested in a woman who _wasn’t_ a conflict of interests?”

Danny pretended to think about it hard. “No, not really.”

“Can’t you ever find a nice school teacher, or a concert violinst and get involved with her instead?”

“Stop laughing.” Danny took out his notebook. “And no, apparently I can’t. I’m attracted to tall women with power.”

“Hey,” said Elizabeth, “I had absolutely _no_ power when we started dating.”

“Yeah, but I knew you’d have power eventually. You were pretty extraordinary, even back then.”

There was a long pause, and Danny looked up to see that Elizabeth had sobered considerably. “I hurt you, didn’t I?” she said.

“Are you kidding? I get a lot worse than this from my publisher,” he replied.

“No,” she said. “I meant when we broke up. I hurt you pretty badly.”

Danny shook his head. “I was the one who was out of line. I used you, and you had every right to be pissed at me.”

“Still,” she replied, “it wouldn’t have killed me to be nicer to you.”

“Well, that’s true.” She laughed a little, and Danny smiled. “What’s done is done. We probably wouldn’t have lasted much longer anyway. Besides, I think we both know you’ve made out pretty well since then.”

“You mean John?” she asked.

“Well, no, I was talking about your career,” he said, “but if you want to talk about your love life, yeah, there’s Sheppard. Didn’t think much of the guy you were with before him—”

“The First Lady set me up with Simon.”

“Then that’s something else you have in common with CJ,” Danny replied. “And before that there was the British ambassador.”

“Hey, I never dated Lord Marbury.”

“I meant the one before that.”

“Oh, right, him.” Elizabeth looked at him thoughtfully. “He turned out to be more of a nuisance than you were.”

Danny rolled his eyes. “What say we get on with the interview?”

“Yes, what say we.”

* * *

On Tuesday afternoon, John met with Jordan Kendall and a man named Tony Alazar, the lawyer Jordan had selected as John’s counsel. The meeting didn’t take long, which was just as well. Jack was meeting with Patrick Keirsey after John’s meeting was done, and that took a very long time.

Patrick was an old friend of Elizabeth’s, the first person she’d ever worked for at the UN, and the man who’d encouraged her to get her doctorate in political science in the first place. They chatted as she led him from the northwest lobby to a small room in the basement of the West Wing. Jordan and Jack were already there, and Patrick sat down on the loveseat in the room to hear the news of life on other planets.

Between them, Elizabeth and Jordan were able to give him a basic synopsis of the scientific stuff involved, and Jack filled in some of the history. Then Jack handed Patrick a copy of his file, and the questions commenced.

At the end of two and a half hours, Elizabeth was starving, but the meeting was done. Patrick showed himself out, leaving her with Jordan and Jack. The general seemed tired and bored already. “Jack,” Elizabeth said, “have you got plans for dinner?”

“You asking me out?” he replied. “I should tell John.”

“He’ll be there,” she said, smiling a little. “I know this quiet little place in Georgetown, if you don’t mind the half-packed boxes all over the place.”

Jack stood and picked up his papers. “I should leave you two lovebirds to yourselves.”

“Jordan’s coming over, actually,” said Elizabeth. “We’ve got more to talk about.”

“Speaking of which, Elizabeth,” Jordan interjected, “I may be a few minutes late. I have to run by my office, and it’s not exactly on the way.”

“That’s fine,” Elizabeth replied. “That’ll give John more time to finish cooking.”

“All right. I’ll see you as soon as I can get there,” Jordan said, and she left the room.

“John’s cooking?” Jack said, as the door closed behind Jordan.

“You’d be surprised at how good he is,” said Elizabeth. “Well, most of the time. Sometimes he gets a little experimental. And he can’t bake at all. Not enough patience.”

“Why are you doing this, Elizabeth?” he asked.

She blinked a few times, nonplussed. “I just thought you might enjoy a meal with—”

“That’s not what I meant,” he interrupted. “You’re not sitting in on Jordan’s other meetings with lawyers. I don’t think you suggested any of the others, since that’s Jordan’s job in all this. Why are you helping me so much?”

It wasn’t an easy question to answer. Elizabeth wasn’t sure she knew why, but she said, “Do you remember what you said to me on one of my first days at the SGC?”

“There are a lot of things about that that I don’t remember, Doctor.”

“You said, ‘Who are you, and why are you here,’” she said. “This is who I am, Jack. This is why I’m here. I’m not going to let you be hanged. Not after all you’ve done.”

“Okay,” Jack replied. Then, after an awkward silence, he added, “So, what’s for dinner?”

* * *

On Wednesday, Jordan Kendall got a phone call from Andrea Wyatt and left her office immediately. When she got to Andi’s office, the place was mostly empty. Andi must have sent some of her aides off on other business to ensure a little more privacy. The redheaded woman was standing in the outer office, waiting. “Congresswoman,” Jordan said. “How can I help you?”

Andi gestured toward her office. “After you, Dr. Kendall. Can I get you anything?”

“No, thank you,” Jordan replied. The door shut, and she faced Andi. “What’s going on?”

“CJ Cregg informed me that she’s asked you to head up the legal team for the Stargate personnel,” Andi said. “Since I’m heading the investigation, I thought we ought to talk.”

“Is this how you usually do things?” Jordan crossed the room and sat in front of Andi’s desk.

“I’m the chairwoman of Foreign Relations. I don’t hold hearings all that often.” She poured herself a drink and joined Jordan at her desk. “I called you here as a courtesy. I don’t want you to think I’m going to go easy on these people simply because I’m a Bartlet supporter.”

“I wouldn’t expect you to,” said Jordan. “Bartlet’s a lame duck. Supporting him doesn’t get you what it used to.”

Andi shook her head. “It’s outrageous, Jordan. Outrageous that they didn’t tell the American public about this ten years ago. Outrageous that they left something so important solely under the jurisdiction of the military for so long.”

“And what are you hoping to accomplish with these hearings, Andi?”

“I want to make sure that the people know everything. They have a right to know, and I’m going to see to it that they do.” Andi set her glass aside. “What are you hoping to accomplish, Jordan?”

“Do you know Elizabeth Weir?” Jordan asked.

“I’ve met her a few times, but I don’t know her well.”

“She’s an old friend of mine,” Jordan continued. “She’s the kind of person that you help when they ask for it. She had a life here, and she gave it up because the president asked her to serve. I’m doing this because she asked me.”

“Well,” Andi said, “I think we’re on the same page, unless you have anything else you want to discuss.”

“No. In fact, I have an appointment at the White House this afternoon. Wouldn’t want to be late.”

The two women stood and shook hands, and then Jordan added, “Can I say one thing, Andi?”

“Sure.”

“I sincerely hope this isn’t ego.”

* * *

“It’s a good draft, Toby,” the President was saying. “‘The promise of a brighter, more enlightened future,’ ‘the legacy of sacrifice in secret.’ You’ve really knocked yourself out on this one.”

“Thank you, sir.” Toby resisted the urge to yawn. It was Thursday evening, six days since the election was called, seven since the president had informed him that they were making the Stargate public knowledge. He hadn’t slept a whole lot in the interim.

“Think this one will go down in history?” Bartlet asked.

“Absolutely,” Toby replied. “It’s the biggest speech of your career, or mine.”

“‘We cannot deny humanity’s destiny,’” the president then read. “‘We cannot stake our future on isolation or fear. We cannot forever ignore our neighbors among the stars.’”

There was a long silence, and then the president removed his glasses. “Let’s just hope people will listen long enough to hear that part.”

* * *

Samantha Carter arrived at the White House with Daniel Jackson on Friday morning, not sure why she had been summoned suddenly. Jack had been involved with meetings there for most of a week, but all they’d heard back at the SGC was that Congressional hearings were in the works as soon as the story broke. Landry had scrubbed all off-world missions for the duration, except in cases of emergency, so Sam and Daniel were both more than a little annoyed to be taken away from their work like this.

A very tall and rather odd woman named Margaret led them from the lobby to the basement, into a room with exposed brick walls and a single conference table filling much of its floor space. Elizabeth Weir was standing at the head of the table, and she beckoned them in. “Colonel Carter, Dr. Jackson, could you take your seats, please?” she asked.

They did so, and Sam looked around the table. Landry, Hammond, and Jack were all there, as were several men and women whom she didn’t recognize. Sheppard was there too, at the foot of the table. “Ladies and gentlemen,” Weir said, “I’m Dr. Elizabeth Weir. Let me go around the table quickly. Dr. Jordan Kendall, Patrick Keirsey, Tony Alazar, General Jack O’Neill, Michael Kent, Alicia Moore, General Hank Landry, General George Hammond, Lieutenant Colonel John Sheppard, Allen Yates, Dr. Daniel Jackson, Lieutenant Colonel Samantha Carter, and Christine Ellison.

“Some of you have met; some of you haven’t,” she continued after whizzing through the names. “The Air Force officers, along with Dr. Jackson and myself, comprise the most likely persons to be called before a joint House and Senate Foreign Relations hearing. It is extremely likely that others will be called, but we can’t be certain until Congresswoman Wyatt and Senator Canter have sent us the list of witnesses.”

“And the rest of you,” Jordan Kendall added, standing up next to Elizabeth, “including myself, comprise the legal team we’ve put together to represent these seven. Alicia, you’re with Dr. Jackson, Tony, you’re with Colonel Carter, and Allen, you’re with General Landry. The rest of you have met with counsel already.”

“Uh, Elizabeth, Dr. Kendall, either of you,” Daniel interrupted.

“Call me Jordan, Dr. Jackson,” the lawyer replied. “We’re probably going to know each other really well by the time this is over.”

“Right. Why are we meeting en masse like this?”

“Because there are things that all of you need to know, and this is simply easier for everyone if you all hear things at once,” Jordan replied. “Hearings work like this. Every member of the committee has a specified amount of time in which to question each witness. If the congressman wants to take more time than that, he can after everyone else has had a turn.” She looked around the room. “I have no doubt that some of you will be on the stand for a very long time.”

“The most important thing any of you can do when you’re in front of the committee is to do and say exactly what counsel has instructed you to do and say,” Elizabeth added. “I can’t emphasize that enough. I know some of you in the room have a habit of bending the rules to get your way, but you can’t do that here. Some of these congressmen will be out to trap you, trying to bait you into saying something that will reflect badly on the SGC and on the president. Your instinct will tell you to get defensive. That’s the wrong thing to do in this situation. None of you is experienced in this kind of combat.”

“And all of these attorneys are,” said Jordan. “Each of them was selected for their particular expertise, and all of them have served as counsel for important men and women testifying before Congress. Trust their instincts, not your own.”

“Any questions?” Elizabeth asked. She was met with silence, and so continued. “Now that we’re clear on procedures in the lions’ den, let’s go over some material on the SGC.”

* * *

On Saturday, Elizabeth and John were summoned to the Oval Office, where the president was waiting with a tall, thin man whom Elizabeth recognized. She knocked on the doorframe, and Bartlet turned around. “Elizabeth, John,” he said, “come on in. Have you met Ron Butterfield?”

“We’ve never been formally introduced,” she replied. “It’s nice to meet you.”

“Ron, this is Elizabeth Weir and John Sheppard,” the President continued. “Ron Butterfield, head of my Secret Service detail.”

“Mr. President, how can we help you?” John asked. Elizabeth resisted the urge to smile. He was getting good at this.

“I need the two of you to sign consent for protection,” Bartlet replied. “I can’t order you to, but I want you to. I don’t want to wait for some crazy person to start sending either of you threats before you agree to security.”

Elizabeth pulled a pen from her purse. “Where do I sign?”

John was visibly taken aback. “You’re just going to agree to it like this?”

She looked at him oddly. “Why wouldn’t I?”

“I can never convince you that you need more security back on Atlantis.”

“This is different, John,” she said. “I’ve been in dangerous situations before, and had armed guards.”

Ron held out the papers to her, and she signed them quickly. John signed his own set as well, and then asked, “So what about the other SGC people?”

“The Air Force is arranging for their security,” Ron replied. “However, with you spending most of your time in Washington and with Dr. Weir, it was decided that it would probably be best if the two of you were under the same organization’s security.”

“Secret Service?”

“No, the Diplomatic Service,” Bartlet answered.

“This is to mollify the State Department, isn’t it?” Elizabeth asked. “The military’s been handling all sorts of diplomatic situations with aliens for a decade, so they’re being given the responsibility of protecting the person who’s going to have the most exposure to the press.”

“You’ve always been quick,” said the president. “The head of your detail is meeting with CJ at the moment. She’s filling him in on why you need protection.”

“It’ll be two four-man teams, one assigned to each of you in the event that you’re not together,” Ron explained. “Wide perimeter protection, unless there’s a credible threat.”

As he spoke, there was a rap on the door that led to the chief of staff’s office. CJ Cregg stuck her head in. “Mr. President, I have Travis Keller of the Diplomatic Service ready to see you.”

“Send him in,” Bartlet called.

Elizabeth knew that name, and she saw a familiar face come through the door. “Travis,” she said, “I haven’t seen you in years.”

The short, stocky man looked at her in surprise. “Dr. Weir, I didn’t expect you to remember me,” he said. “I wasn’t the most memorable part of that trip.”

“You two know each other?” the president said casually. John looked quite curious.

“Yes, sir,” Elizabeth said. “We were in the Baltics. Travis was on my security detail on that trip.” She looked at the man. “You may not have been the most memorable part of that trip, but you were certainly more pleasant than most of the people I had to deal with then.”

“Where was this?” John asked.

“Kaliningrad,” Travis answered. “Dr. Weir was trying to stop a war between Lithuania and Poland over the city. And the Germans weren’t being terribly helpful.”

“And to top it all off, it’s the home of Russia’s Baltic fleet, with a massive number of dangerous nuclear reactors that make fuel for their submarines,” Bartlet added.

John had both eyebrows raised when Elizabeth looked back at him. “Yeah, I knew about that part.”

Elizabeth smiled wryly. “There’s a saying about Kaliningrad,” she said. “The optimists are learning German, the pessimists are learning Polish, and the realists are learning how to use Kalashnikovs.”

* * *

_Kaliningrad  
Seven years earlier_

Elizabeth Weir had not slept in forty-eight hours, and judging from the distant sounds of gunfire, it would be a long time before she got to sleep again.

Most Americans, she’d observed, wouldn’t know where to look to find Kaliningrad. Elizabeth found this strange, given the history of the area. If Eastern Europe was a game of tug-of-war, Kaliningrad was the mud pit in the middle. The city had changed hands numerous times over the centuries, so often that some might consider it difficult to determine who really had the strongest claim on the ancient fortress of Königsberg and the city which had grown up around it. Right now it was Lithuania and Poland. Russia would have to get involved eventually, as they _were_ the current controlling power, and the Germans already had one foot in the door.

“Beautiful place,” said the man next to Elizabeth, rousing her from her thoughts. Travis was probably the most sociable of the Diplomatic Service agents assigned to her. “It’s kind of hard to believe it’s been a flashpoint for so long.”

“Obviously you’ve never been to Kashmir,” Elizabeth replied. He was right, though. It was a beautiful city.

As they drove through the city, however, the SUV caravan started to attract some unwanted attention. When the German consulate came in sight, crowds had already formed down the street. The SUV at the front of the convoy had slowed to a crawl, and the others followed suit. “At least they’re unarmed,” Elizabeth said, as they began wading into the crowd.

They had half a mile to go when she started to feel uncomfortable, even though the window next to her was tinted bulletproof glass. The crowd was getting angrier, more hostile, and even a little violent as they drew nearer to the consulate gate. Something hit the side of the vehicle, and Travis held his hand to his earpiece and then said into his wrist microphone, “Copy that.” He reached into his jacket and pulled out a handkerchief. “You may want to cover your face, Miss Weir.”

Elizabeth took the cloth from him, bewildered. “What’s going on?”

“They’re dropping tear gas to disperse the crowd,” Travis explained. “You ever been exposed to it?”

“No.” In front of them, a cloud began to billow around the lead car.

“Then cover your face and lean away from the door.” She held the handkerchief over her mouth and nose, but Travis let out an exasperated sigh. “Over your eyes too, Miss Weir.”

Elizabeth did as she was told, and the convoy started picking up speed. They had to pause again at the consulate’s gate, but by then the crowd was breaking up, and she was able to take the cloth from her face. “Thanks for the warning,” she said, folding the handkerchief up and handing it back.

He didn’t answer, but within thirty seconds the car had come to a stop, and Elizabeth was getting out, her briefcase in hand. At the front door, they were met by two armed guards. Elizabeth had her Diplomatic Service entourage, as well as a few assistants from the United Nations, flanking her. “ _Name_ ,” the guard asked.

“Elizabeth Weir,” she replied.

“ _Die Amerikanische Diplomatin_?”

“ _Ich arbeite für die Vereinte Nationen, nicht die Amerikanische Regierung._ ”

She produced her diplomatic passport, as did the others around her, and they were granted entrance into the building. As they walked, Elizabeth spoke softly to Travis, who was on her right. “Travis, I need you to understand something, and I need you to acknowledge that I’m not asking this out of ego,” she said.

“What is it, ma’am?”

“When you address me, it’s Dr. Weir, not Miss Weir,” she replied. “Normally I wouldn’t care, but if we’re going to stop a war from breaking out, I need as much clout as I can get.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Let’s get this show on the road, then.”

* * *

On Monday morning, John convinced Elizabeth to go to the Air and Space Museum with him. It was an easier sell than it might have been under other circumstances, as Danny was publishing that day, and it would be the last time they’d have the opportunity to go somewhere anonymously, probably for the rest of their lives. The President had understood this, and talked with them about it the day before. Private life was probably never going to be an option for them again.

So she was rather eager to take the opportunity to wander through a museum, unknown to those around her. John was acting a bit like a boy on Christmas morning. Visiting this shrine to aviation was rather like a religious experience for him.

The place was extremely busy, despite being a weekday, and when they decided to get lunch, the food court was no exception. Elizabeth found it a bit odd to be eating within feet of the lunar lander, but no more odd than eating with a grown man who had chosen Chicken McNuggets for lunch. She looked at John as he dipped one in barbecue sauce, and she shook her head. “What?” he said. “Do you know how long it’s been since I had these?”

“At least a year,” she replied.

“Two years. And sometimes you just want something like this.”

“I’m just thinking,” Elizabeth said, “that this probably counts as our first real date. And you decided to get McDonald’s.”

John looked at her oddly. “All that stuff I dressed up for in Sydney doesn’t count?”

“That was by presidential request, remember?”

“Yeah, well, we’ve got Abbott and Costello with us now,” he countered, nodding at the two Diplomatic Service agents who had been following them around all morning.

He would have gone on, but Elizabeth looked up at one of the food court televisions and grabbed his arm. He paused, a ketchup-laden French fry halfway to his mouth. The TVs in the room were all on a CNN feed, and across the bottom, the caption read, “White House Confirms Life on Other Planets.”

“The story’s out,” Elizabeth whispered.

In her peripheral vision, she saw people pointing at the screens, and the food court grew unnaturally quiet. The anchor on television was saying, “In a stunning headline this morning, _Washington Post_ correspondent Danny Concannon claimed to have proof of human life on other planets in this galaxy and others. CNN has contacted White House Chief of Staff CJ Cregg, who has confirmed Concannon’s report.”


	7. Chapter 7

Josh Lyman was up at the White House within an hour of seeing the news on CNN.

In a strange moment of déjà-vu, Donna Moss was waiting for him in the northwest lobby. It had been months since they’d played out this scene, but that thought didn’t linger. Instead, he took the files she held out for him and said, “Can you believe this?”

“Hello, Josh,” she replied. “It’s nice to see you too. I’m fine, thanks for asking.”

Josh looked at her askance, then at the papers in his hand. “Yeah, good to know,” he said. “Really, can you believe this? The government’s had knowledge of alien life for a decade and I never knew about it.”

“It does boggle the mind.”

They entered into the office space of the West Wing. “You guys must have a ton of work this week,” Josh said. “This is… I don’t know, Shareef, M. S., and an episode of _The X-Files_ all rolled into one.”

“Pretty much.” Donna looked at the papers she’d handed him and added one more to the stack. “You’re meeting with CJ, right?”

“Yeah, she’s managed to squeeze me in. Can’t imagine what her job is like today.” He glanced at his watch. “The president-elect wanted me to speak with the president too, but I doubt that’s going to happen. Wouldn’t mind speaking with Elizabeth Weir, either.” He blinked. “I guess that’s why no one could find her to get her to work on the campaign. Is she here?”

“She and Colonel Sheppard were in Toby’s office a little while ago,” Donna replied.

“Sheppard, that’s… the military commander of that expedition?”

“Yeah. He’s cute, too.”

Josh looked at her in surprise. “Don’t worry,” she added. “He’s also Elizabeth Weir’s boyfriend. Has been for a while.”

He shook his head. “I guess you’ve had a couple weeks to digest this. You’ll just have to find it in yourself to forgive me for not being quite so easygoing—”

“Josh.”

They stopped as they passed through the Roosevelt Room, which was otherwise empty. “What?” he asked.

“Yes, I’ve had longer than you to digest this,” she said. “I’ve had fifteen months.”

“What?” he repeated, though in a tone of disbelief this time. “Donna, you were still working for me fifteen months ago.”

“I know,” she replied. “It was on the Sydney trip. Dr. Weir was there, and Danny nearly figured everything out then. They have some history.”

“Yeah, but how—”

“CJ needed me to figure out how much he had,” Donna continued. “He didn’t have enough then, but I knew some things he didn’t, and I told CJ that she had to cancel the interview he’d planned with Dr. Weir. At the end of it all, the president told me what I’d already pieced together.”

Josh blinked. Only Donna would ever figure this kind of thing out and actually believe it.

They started walking again, though at a more leisurely pace. “Want a nickel’s worth of free advice?” Donna asked as they neared CJ’s office.

“Nickel doesn’t have the purchasing power it used to.”

She pointed at a television. “This is the tip of the iceberg,” she said, and she walked away.

Josh stared blankly at the screen, which was showing B-roll of Elizabeth Weir and a dark-haired Air Force officer trying to push through a crowd of reporters outside the Smithsonian. “Tip of the iceberg,” he repeated.

* * *

Despite the fact that it was freezing, Zoey Bartlet was slurping down a milkshake as she and Charlie Young finished up lunch. It wasn’t often that they got to have a casual lunch like this, in the middle of a normal restaurant in Georgetown. Granted, there was only so much normal for them. Zoey’s agents were always around.

Her left hand lay on the table, fingers spread, and Charlie traced his index finger around the shape, stopping only when he got to the ring she was wearing. This was a relatively recent development, and he was still having the odd spot of difficulty believing that she’d said yes. It was actually less surprising, in a way, that her father had given his blessing. Of course, he was still working at calling the man anything but Mr President.

“When do you have to get back to work?” Zoey asked, taking one of his fries.

“I’ve got a meeting at two,” he replied. “I want to get back there a little early, though. There’s some budget things I need to review before it starts.”

“Always so studious,” she said. “I don’t know how you do it.”

“You’re the one who went to Georgetown and only got one grade that wasn’t an A.”

“Yeah, and Dad almost went ballistic over it.” Zoey sighed. “I remember him talking about getting Dr. Weir in to give me a pop quiz so my grade could be raised from a C to a B, at least.”

“I’m surprised he didn’t,” said Charlie.

“Dr. Weir disappeared not long after that, I think,” she said. “Some top-secret thing, probably. She’s resurfaced again, though.”

“Yeah, I’ve seen her around the White House,” he replied. He didn’t add that the aura of mystery around the place seemed to be centered on the diplomat. “She’s been with a lot of military brass. Jordan Kendall, too. I don’t know what’s going on.”

“Is she with a cute colonel with crazy hair?”

Charlie shot his fiancée a look. Never mind the fact that yes, Weir was with a cute colonel with crazy hair.

Zoey laughed. “That’s John Sheppard. He was on the Australia trip last year.” When he didn’t stop looking at her suspiciously, she elbowed him and stole another fry. “Oh, don’t look at me like that. He’s also _with_ Dr. Weir, last I knew.”

Charlie pretended to grumble a bit, but then a television on the other side of the room caught his eye. To his surprise, Elizabeth Weir was on the screen. “Speak of the devil.”

Zoey looked up too. “What’s going on?”

“I don’t know,” he replied. There was something on the bottom of the screen about “Stargate.” “I’ve heard that word before,” he continued. “I thought it was a code name for something.”

Then the text changed. The new banner read: “White House Confirms Life on Other Planets.”

Charlie and Zoey shared a long, shocked look at each other. Then his pager went off, and in a flash, he was getting up while she was trying to shove him out of the booth. “I have to get back to the—”

“I know,” she interrupted. “I’ll take care of the bill. I’m sure CJ or my father needs you.”

He ran off without another word and hailed a taxi, too consumed with this bizarre news to feel all that bad at having walked out on Zoey. As he tried not to listen to the radio, all he could wonder was how he hadn’t known this already, after seven years in the West Wing.

* * *

On the following morning, John woke up at what he thought was an early time, but Elizabeth was already out of bed. She wasn’t in the bathroom either, so John showered quickly and headed downstairs, carrying his uniform jacket over his shoulder.

He found Elizabeth standing in the middle of the living room with a bevy of Diplomatic Service agents around her. “Elizabeth, what’s going on?” he asked.

“Good morning,” she replied, without looking up from the paper she was signing.

Travis Keller came up to John then. “We got our first threat last night,” he explained. “It probably won’t amount to anything, but we’re setting up a security system in the house anyway. It shouldn’t be much of an inconvenience.” As the man was speaking, someone across the room started drilling into the wall. “Well, except for setting up the cameras. That’s going to require poking some holes in the walls.”

“Cameras?” John repeated, watching as Elizabeth removed a framed mirror from the wall to let one of the agents work unobstructed.

“Mostly covering doors and windows,” Travis explained. “Entrances and exits, essentially, with a few others thrown in for good measure.”

John resisted the urge to roll his eyes. “Is there any place in this house where Elizabeth and I can have some privacy, then?”

Travis pointed to his right. “I think there’s a closet over there.”

“Agent Keller,” a woman called.

Travis nodded to John and walked away. In his place came Elizabeth, bringing him coffee. She kissed him briefly and handed him the mug. “They woke me up an hour ago,” she said. “I would have woken you up too, but you just looked too comfortable.”

He took a sip and leaned back against the sofa. “Well, I’ll thank you for that, I guess.”

“What’s wrong?” she asked.

John looked around and frowned. “You know, every time I try to tell you that you need more security for whatever reason, you tell me I’m overreacting.” He waved his free hand around the living room. “Why are you doing this so readily?”

“This isn’t the same thing, John,” Elizabeth replied. “You assigned an entire defense team to be my security escort whenever I leave Atlantis. Major Lorne and Lieutenant Armstrong both have the ATA gene, so if one is incapacitated, the other can still fly a puddle jumper. In this case, I had no protection to begin with, and Travis is giving me evidence when he says I need security cameras installed.”

“And I say you need more protection when you leave Atlantis. Do you know how often my team runs into trouble on seemingly innocuous planets?”

She smiled. “You seem to have that knack, yes,” she replied. “You were in Kosovo and Afghanistan. I’ve been in more war zones than you. I’m not naïve, John.”

Something about that unsettled him, but John let it pass. “So why don’t you see my point?”

“Because sometimes the more powerful weapon is the appearance of weakness.” She met his gaze levelly, and there was no doubt in her eyes. “If I go into a situation with a dozen soldiers armed to the teeth, I’m more likely to make people hostile and uncompromising. If I don’t appear to be a threat, then I have a chance to get people to see reason.”

He smiled and shook his head. “I guess this is why your resumé is so long and you’re not that old.”

“Something like that.” She kissed him again. “Be glad that I agreed to having a security team at all.”

“And what happens when it’s not enough?”

“Then you come and rescue me.”

John sighed. “I still don’t see why my team can’t accompany you all the time,”

“Well, occasionally, when I go off-world, it’s to spring you from some prison,” she teased, coming around to stand next to him against the sofa back. “Besides, for you to be an effective member of my posse, you can’t spend all your time staring at me.”

“I do not.”

“You’re doing it right now.”

He glared, not about to admit that he’d been staring at her hand. “I’m getting breakfast.”

* * *

_Washington, D. C.  
Seven years earlier_

Jordan Kendall had been mystified by Elizabeth Weir’s call, and even more confused by the younger woman’s request to meet her at a small bar in Georgetown. She didn’t know Dr. Weir very well, but maybe that was why she went anyway. Twenty minutes after the call, she found Elizabeth seated at the bar, her hand gripping a shot glass too tightly. The room was dark, loud, and smoky. Probably the perfect place to hide.

“Elizabeth,” Jordan said, trying to be as open as possible.

The woman looked up, dark circles under her reddened eyes. She huffed out a short breath and closed her eyes. “Thank you for coming,” she said. “I didn’t know who else to call.”

Jordan sat down on the next bar stool and laid her hand over Elizabeth’s. This had the added effect of forcing her to loosen her grip on the glass. “Are you in legal trouble?”

Elizabeth let out a short, mirthless laugh. “I haven’t been in the country long enough in the last year to have time to break any laws, Jordan,” she said. “I got back from Kosovo this morning.”

Jordan leaned back, her mind flipping through the images she’d seen on television, knowing those were far from the worst. “What happened?” she asked, deciding on a neutral question.

Elizabeth shook her head. “So much,” she replied. “I had dozens of UN peacekeepers behind me while I told some militia general that he wasn’t going to run through a town the way he’d burned through the countryside. It didn’t do any good. The reports I heard later…”

“Elizabeth,” Jordan said, “you know I was never a negotiator, right? I’ve never been in this situation.”

“You’ve at least seen the pictures from things like this,” the other woman replied. “The pictures that weren’t on CNN.”

Reluctantly, Jordan nodded. “Yes, I have.”

“You’ll understand more than most people do.” Elizabeth looked away, back to her drink. “I was in Cuska three days ago. Four days ago, a group of Serbians came into the village, rounded up the men, and killed them.” She took a deep, shuddering breath. “They separated the men into three groups and sent them into three houses. They lined them up and just… shot them all. Then they set the houses on fire and left. The bodies, Jordan…”

Jordan didn’t know what to say. There probably wasn’t something appropriate, if she were honest with herself. Instead, she touched Elizabeth’s back gingerly, and when she didn’t object, started rubbing to soothe her. Elizabeth downed the shot and rested her forehead against her fist, biting her lip for a moment.

“I’ve seen horrible things, Jordan,” she said. “Heard horrible things. Almost a hundred accounts of rape in the last three and a half months. And who knows how many have gone unreported? Gang rapes, breaking into people’s homes to take the women, girls who didn’t even understand what was happening to them… Jordan, how is any of this even _human_?”

It was obvious that Elizabeth didn’t expect an answer, though, as the tears that had been in her eyes started spilling down her cheeks, and she held her fist to her mouth, holding back sobs. If what little Jordan knew about the woman was accurate, this was probably the first time she’d let herself react to all she’d seen and heard. Jordan stood up and turned Elizabeth’s bar stool around, pulling her into a hug as best she could. And Elizabeth cried for a long time, while Jordan ignored the stares and comments from those around them. Finally Elizabeth had calmed down somewhat, and Jordan said, “Elizabeth? Let me get you home. You look like you haven’t slept in a week.”

“I can’t make it stop, Jordan,” she said, getting up shakily.

“No,” Jordan replied, shaking her head sadly. “But maybe you can help make it better.”

* * *

Three days after the disclosure, the country—and probably most of the world, for that matter—was still reeling from the news. At least, that was the impression one got from watching the news. Having dated a reporter, Elizabeth knew how reality could be twisted in the hands of the press.

She had little doubt that most of the media plan was actually CJ’s, as CJ was probably the White House staffer with the most experience in herding rabid reporters. Within twenty-four hours of the disclosure, Elizabeth was on half a dozen news programs, doing her best to expound on what Danny had published in the first two articles and to calm everyone down. And on the fourth day after the world changed for good, there was a ceremony in the Rose Garden.

There had been an incident several years earlier when SG-1 had defied direct orders about the Stargate program being shut down for good, and had headed off-world to intercept two Goa’uld motherships on their way to destroy Earth. After their triumphant return, George Hammond had put the then Colonel O’Neill and Captain Carter up for the Congressional Medal of Honor. There was no question that they deserved it, but such an honor was difficult to bestow when everything about the deed was classified. Now there was even more reason to give it to them.

During the brief but rather lovely ceremony, an Air Force aide read off the acts of heroism Sam and Jack had performed in the last several years. Somewhere in the middle of it all, Elizabeth found herself holding John’s gloved hand. Up by the podium, standing on either side of President Bartlet, Sam and Jack both looked a little self-conscious about so much praise being heaped upon them. If they were anything like John, they both felt that they had just been doing their duty and nothing more. The next day, Elizabeth knew that she, John, Daniel, and Teal’c were all scheduled to receive the Presidential Medal of Freedom, but for now she was glad that it wasn’t her up there.

The really emotional part came when the aide began reading the citation for Major Janet Fraiser, the long-time chief medical officer at the SGC, who had died when she went off-world to save the life of a critically injured enlisted man—a man whose wife was expecting their first child. Thanks to her, the airman had survived. She, on the other hand, had been hit by enemy fire and killed instantly.

Cassandra Fraiser, Janet’s adopted daughter, accepted the medal on her mother’s behalf, and when the ceremony had ended, she walked up to the members of SG-13 and their families. Elizabeth was almost certain that the next day’s papers would have pictures of the young woman holding the two-year-old whose father was only alive because of Janet Fraiser’s sacrifice.

There was a reception after the ceremony, but unlike most of the events Elizabeth had attended in the White House, the guests of honor knew very few of the people attending. But it was still a little surprising when Sam Carter approached her, looking a little nervous. Elizabeth decided to at least try to break the ice. “Congratulations, Colonel,” she said, extending her hand.

Sam shook her hand warmly, and then touched the medal around her neck. “I keep thinking this can’t be real,” she said. “I guess it hadn’t hit me that all this was actually happening till now.”

“I think it probably hit me a little sooner,” Elizabeth said, sipping her punch, “but it’s my ex-boyfriend’s fault that it’s out at all.”

Sam looked confused. “Do you mean to say you were with the reporter who broke the story?” she asked.

“Fifteen years ago.”

The blonde woman shook her head. “I can’t picture that.”

“I was a very different person back then,” Elizabeth replied. “You really would have hated me, I imagine.”

“What happened, then?”

“I was out to change the world then. Somewhere along the way I was standing in front of tanks and in the midst of burned corpses and figured out that I couldn’t. At least, not as spectacularly as I thought I could when I was twenty-two.”

Sam looked thoughtful. “I don’t know about that,” she said. “What’s going on now is pretty spectacular.”

They looked around the room for a moment, and the silence was more comfortable than Elizabeth had ever remembered with this woman. Then Sam shifted her weight from one foot to the other, looked at the floor and said, “Dr. Weir, I heard about your father. I’m so sorry.”

Elizabeth blinked several times before they made eye contact. “I—Thank you,” she said, softly.

Sam looked away. “I lost my father last year,” she said. “I had him a lot longer than I should have, but that didn’t really make it easier. They said… They said you got to speak to him before he died. That he remembered you. I’m glad you had that much.”

“So am I,” Elizabeth replied, nodding. “So am I.”

* * *

When Travis Keller started his shift the next morning, he brought Elizabeth the papers and a report. He’d had a meeting with Ron Butterfield and the Air Force officer who was coordinating security for the other SGC personnel, and when he’d left the White House, he’d been given a top-secret file to give to Elizabeth. Travis reminded her very much of Major Lorne, back on Atlantis. He always had a smile for her.

The report was a transcript of messages from Atlantis, along with a summary of the weekly report. John came downstairs to find her smiling at it. “What could possibly be funny in that, Elizabeth?” he asked.

“McKay,” she replied. “He says Teyla’s gone mad with power and that Ronon’s aiding and abetting her dictatorial tendencies.”

“Always knew Teyla had the makings of a megalomaniac.”

“If there’s any truth to this business about Ronon enforcing ‘office hours’ for Teyla,” Elizabeth continued, “I may have to reassign him.”

John came up to her, tipped her chin up, and kissed her. “You wouldn’t dare.”

“Oh, wouldn’t I.”

He sat down opposite her. Elizabeth thought to herself, quite shallowly, that she was going to miss this when they went back to Atlantis. She liked seeing him in dress blues all the time, even if he did hate the uniform. “So, what does Teyla have to say about Rodney’s allegations?”

“That Rodney wanted to do something truly idiotic, and she wouldn’t let him.”

“Sounds about right.” He sighed and fidgeted with his tie. “Anything else?”

“Things are running pretty smoothly.” Elizabeth sipped at her coffee. “Major Lorne’s team ran into some trouble on MX1-138, but it turned out to be a cultural misunderstanding. Lieutenant Cadman took a team of all women to that moon the next time out.”

“All women?” John repeated. “I don’t even want to know.”

“Oh, you should,” said Elizabeth. “It’s entertaining stuff. Then there are the medical updates…”

There was silence for a moment, as she stared down at the page. “Elizabeth?” John said. “You kind of trailed off…”

“I just remembered something Colonel Carter said yesterday,” she said quietly.

“What is it?” he asked, leaning forward.

“She was offering her condolences about my father,” she replied. “And she said something about how he was lucid at the end. I don’t know how she would have known that unless…”

John cocked his head. “The doctor at the VA hospital said he’d been on an experimental treatment.”

Elizabeth nodded. “Is it possible that he was treated with something that— that had come from another planet?”

John opened his mouth, but then Elizabeth’s pager, lying in the middle of the kitchen table, started beeping. She grabbed it and the cell phone next to it and dialed. “Hello?”

“Elizabeth, it’s Jordan,” the woman on the other end said. “We’ve got the list. It’s not pretty.”

“We’ll be right in.” She closed the phone and stood. “That was Jordan,” she explained to John, who was buttoning up his uniform jacket. “She got the subpoena list from Andi.”

“Bad news, I take it?”

Elizabeth nodded. “I have a feeling that this is going to get very ugly before it’s all over.”


	8. Chapter 8

Within the hour, Elizabeth had arrived in the basement room of the White House where they’d met with lawyers in the previous week. John was just behind her as she raced down the stairs into the room. “Elizabeth,” Jordan called, from behind a stack of file boxes, “time to get to work.”

“So I gather,” Elizabeth replied. “Where’s the list?”

“Terry,” Jordan said, “give Dr. Weir the list.” As the young woman handed it over, Jordan explained, “Legislative liaison’s loaned us some interns to help out down here till we have things more or less under control.”

Elizabeth was barely listening. She was looking over the witness list, John reading over her shoulder. The first part of the list was unsurprising: the seven they had already figured on, plus a few more scientists and soldiers who had been at the SGC for a very long time. Past that, things started to get muddy.

“What’s the game plan?” Elizabeth asked.

“We go down the list,” Jordan replied, “and find the chinks in the armor.”

John and the two women were versed enough in SGC history to get through the first few names with relative ease, though Jordan informed them that a liaison named Paul Davis would be joining them. Hammond and Landry were unlikely to face serious problems in the committee room. O’Neill, on the other hand, would have to answer to questions of the very first mission, when he took along a nuclear device with every intention of using it.

“I’m concerned,” Jordan said, once they had gotten past the SGC commanders, “about Colonel Carter.”

“Colonel Carter?” John repeated, looking up from the file he was perusing. “Why? Her record’s spotless.”

“Colonel Sheppard,” the woman replied, “in a matter like this, where the military has been chiefly involved in hiding information, having a spotless military record is going to do more harm than good.”

John looked at Elizabeth, who shrugged. “She’s probably right.” Then Elizabeth looked at Jordan. “But what are they going to be able to pick apart?”

“This,” Jordan said, holding up a video. “Colonel Carter is the only person from the SGC, as far as I know, who has ever publicly lied about something related to the Stargate, and it’s on tape.”

She walked to the television nearby and stuck the tape in. Carter was in service dress, seated in a news studio. “Well, first of all,” the woman was saying, “I can assure people that if aliens really existed and were visiting the planet, we would know about it.”

“So are you saying his claims have no merit?” the reporter with her asked. “We all saw an alien on live television.”

Jordan paused the video. “This was when Alec Colson came forward with proof of alien life,” she explained. “Colonel Carter’s job was to discredit him using Asgard holographic technology.”

“I read the transcript of that,” John replied. “Technically, she didn’t lie.”

“John, she was countering the truth,” said Elizabeth, leaning on the table. “Everything she said may have been true, but she still went on national television with the goal of misleading the public.” She looked down for a moment before looking back at Jordan. “How likely do you think it is that she’ll be asked about this?”

“I don’t know,” the other woman replied. “There’s a lot of material—a lot of other stuff the committee could choose to question her about. But if I were on the committee, I’d want to hold her responsible for this.”

Elizabeth stood up straight. “Yes, so would I.”

“I’ll have to run this by her and her lawyer, and maybe a few other people.” Jordan sighed. “I’m starting to think that I’m just not going to sleep for the rest of the year.”

The team had gotten through the possibilities for Daniel Jackson’s testimony when Elizabeth took off her jacket. “When’s the Air Force liaison getting here?” she asked. “We’re starting to get into territory that I’m just not as familiar with, and I don’t think John is either.”

“He was in Colorado for a meeting with General Landry this morning,” Jordan replied. Up at the top of the stairs, the door opened. “He’ll be here this afternoon. In the meantime—”

“You’ll just have to put up with me.”

Elizabeth turned and saw Lord Marbury descending the stairs, his overcoat draped over his arm. “Your Lordship,” she said.

“Good morning, Dr. Weir,” the man replied. “Good morning, Dr. Kendall, and good morning, Colonel Sheppard. My presence was requested, and so I have arrived.”

Elizabeth glanced at John. The British ambassador’s eccentric formality probably wouldn’t have worked with any other accent.

“Lord Marbury,” Jordan said, “we’ve been sent the list of witnesses for the Foreign Relations committee’s hearing on Stargate Command.”

“Well,” the ambassador replied, “that sounds… completely unrelated to any part of my job.”

“Normally it would be, your Lordship,” said Elizabeth, “but a British citizen has been asked to appear.”

“Obviously it won’t be compulsory for her,” Jordan added, “but we’re informing your government now.”

“I see. And who might this British citizen be?”

“An egyptologist named Dr. Sarah Gardner,” John replied. “She was—”

“Implanted with a Goa’uld symbiote several years ago, yes,” Marbury interrupted. “I am as acquainted with the history of Stargate Command as your government would allow. Dr. Gardner’s case was of particular interest to me.”

“Well, in that case,” Jordan said, “do you think you can give some insight into what kind of angle the committee may take with her, should she choose to testify?”

“With no time to give it proper consideration, my best guess, beyond simply an explanation of what happened to her,” he replied, “would be that she speak to the necessity of caution in archaeological expeditions. In all honesty, however, I suspect she was called out of curiosity more than anything else.”

“Would you like to get someone in your government to inform her, or shall I contact her?” Jordan asked.

“I’ll contact her myself,” Marbury said. “Now, it seems you are well-meaning but somewhat understaffed. Might I offer my assistance in this analysis?”

“By all means, your Lordship,” Jordan replied. “Please, take a seat.”

Elizabeth, however, had turned her attention elsewhere, back to the list. “Oh, don’t tell me,” she began.

“Elizabeth?” John said. “What’s wrong?”

“I really thought Andi was above this,” she replied. “They’re calling Cassandra Fraiser.”

“You’re kidding,” Jordan said.

“You didn’t see that?” Elizabeth held up the paper, pointing out Cassandra’s name, sandwiched between Paul Davis and Donna Moss. “I didn’t think Andi would resort to something so petty.”

“I’m not sure I understand,” John said.

“Cassandra Fraiser is an alien, John,” said Elizabeth. “She was the only survivor of her planet, and after something involving one of the Goa’uld, Janet Fraiser adopted her. She’s in college now. She has a life. Do you think she wants to risk that by letting the whole world know that she was born on another planet?”

“Not really, no.”

Elizabeth looked at Jordan. “We need to get her off this list,” she said, “if only out of respect for a Medal of Honor recipient.”

“Do you happen to have a plan?” Lord Marbury asked.

“Actually,” Elizabeth replied, “I do.”

* * *

Nancy McNally walked into the Congressional offices of Andrea Wyatt without an appointment, but as soon as she was recognized, the Congresswoman’s private office was cleared out, and the two women were left alone. This was Elizabeth Weir’s master plan, or at least what passed for a master plan when she only had two minutes to come up with something: get the National Security Advisor to lean on Andi to get her to see reason about these hearings.

“What can I do for you, Dr. McNally?” Andi asked.

“Over the years, I’ve been privy to a lot more information on the Stargate program than you’ve been given since you were told about its existence,” she explained. “I don’t like the brand of recklessness and pettiness that you’ve displayed with one of the people you’ve put on the witness list.”

“Excuse me?” said Andi.

“Calling Cassandra Fraiser before this committee is inexcusable, Congresswoman,” Nancy replied. “There is nothing you’ll gain from her testimony, other than cheap political points.”

Andi looked up from her desk with eyes wide. “Did you say Cassandra Fraiser?”

“She’s on your list.”

Andi got up abruptly and mumbled an excuse as she rushed out of the inner office. Nancy followed at a slower pace. “Eric!” Andi yelled. “Eric Browning!”

A relatively young man stood up from his desk. “Yes, Congresswoman?”

“You added Cassandra Fraiser to this list,” she said.

“One of the other Congressmen had suggested it,” the man replied.

“And you decided to take the initiative?” Andi finished. “How clever of you.”  
“Congresswoman—”

“She’s not appearing before my committee so long as I’m the head of it,” she stated. “You will fix this before lunch, or you’re losing your job.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

Andi stormed off again, leading Nancy back into her private office. “I can’t believe the nerve that takes,” she was saying. “I specifically said that we were not calling that girl. There’s nothing she’d contribute to the process. She deserves her privacy.”

“Well, you just made my argument for me,” Nancy replied.

Andi frowned. “Why did they send you, anyway? I would have expected Dr. Weir or Dr. Kendall.”

“Well, if my first two arguments failed, I could always pull the national security card.”

“What was your second argument?” Andi asked, brow raised.

“That this young woman’s mother would probably have done anything in her power to keep her from testifying, but that’s not an option for Janet Fraiser anymore, and we ought to respect that.” She looked at Andi warily. “Is there any chance that you’ll be equally respectful of the other witnesses’ privacy?”

“Everyone on the committee gets time to ask questions,” the redhead replied. “I can’t control what they ask.”

“I wasn’t asking about them,” Nancy said. “I was asking about you.”

* * *

_The White House  
Three years earlier_

Elizabeth was standing in the outer room of the Oval Office, leaning against Charlie Young’s desk. She had been called in by President Walken—and how extraordinarily _strange_ it was to think of that—to lend her considerable international expertise to the current crisis. She had given her advice and answered all his questions as impartially as she could, and now she was simply waiting.

The television next to the door to the Mural Room was on CNN, and after a little while, Elizabeth was startled to see herself on the air. She had taped an interview earlier in the day, but had expected it to have already aired. Before getting in front of the camera, she’d had no idea why she had been asked to give the interview while Zoey Bartlet was missing. After she had answered a number of questions about the international situation, she realized why.

“You’re not just an expert in diplomacy and international relations,” the anchor was saying, “but you’re also a close friend of the Bartlet family.”

She watched herself nod on the screen. “President Bartlet has been a good friend and mentor to me for several years, yes.”

“So you know Zoey Bartlet pretty well.”

“She was in elementary school when I met her,” Elizabeth explained. “But I didn’t really have much of a chance to know her well until she took one of my classes at Georgetown this semester.”

The door to the portico opened, and Elizabeth looked up to see Charlie Young entering, looking a bit worse for wear. “Dr. Weir,” he greeted.

“Hello, Charlie,” she said, getting off his desk.

“Is there anything I can help you with?”

She folded her arms over herself. “I was just in the Oval Office,” she explained. “But I was wondering if I could see President Bartlet and the family for a few minutes.” When the young man wavered, she added, “If you think it’s a bad idea, I’ll go.”

“No,” he replied, “I think it’s a good idea.” He gestured toward the door. “Follow me.”

He led her into the Residence, one of the few parts of the White House to which she had never been. Elizabeth soon found herself in a living room, where the older two Bartlet girls were watching CNN. Her interview was still playing. By then, the subject had changed to the lack of a vice president, and how radically the political landscape in Washington seemed to be changing.

Elizabeth had debated whether or not to ask to see the president, knowing she’d probably end up in a room with the Bartlet women. Ellie had never warmed to her, Liz openly disliked her, and Abbey had had her problems with Elizabeth in the past, too. But it was too late to back out. Ellie had noticed her presence.

“Elizabeth,” the young woman said. “Do you need anything?”

Elizabeth looked at Charlie and nodded. He then left the room. She turned back and saw that both of the women were watching her now. Liz looked particularly unhappy. “I was here on business,” she said, “and I thought I might speak to your father, if he’ll see me.”

Ellie nodded. “I’ll go ask him.”

She got up and left, and Elizabeth looked around uncomfortably. “Liz,” she said, “I know we’ve never been on the best of terms, but I just wanted to say… I’m so sorry about Zoey.”

Liz stood up and faced her. “I know you mean well,” she said, “but I don’t think you should be here.”

Elizabeth frowned. “Liz…”

“There haven’t been any other politicians allowed up here,” Liz replied. “I’m not sure why Charlie thought it was okay for you.”

“I’m not here as a politician, Liz,” Elizabeth said, seeing Ellie come back into the room behind Liz. “I’m here as a friend.”

Liz let out a short, mirthless laugh. “You’re Dad’s friend, not mine,” she said. “Haven’t you intruded on my family enough? Can’t we have just one time when Elizabeth Weir doesn’t have to be involved?”

“Liz,” Ellie interrupted. “What are you doing?”

Liz turned around, but didn’t speak. “Your issues about her are with Dad, and you should have worked them out with him a long time ago,” Ellie continued. “Our sister is probably dead. This isn’t the time to be petty.”

The sisters stared at each other for a while, and then Liz mumbled an excuse and left. Elizabeth looked at Ellie, who shrugged. “It’s been stressful,” she began.  
Elizabeth shook her head. “You don’t have to apologize,” she said. “She’s never really liked me to begin with. Though I can’t say I thought you liked me much either.”

Ellie almost smiled. “For a long time I thought you were using Dad to advance your career, and that Dad was just being thoughtless,” she said. “But then you gave Zoey a C in your class. Most people wouldn’t have done that if they’d wanted to stay on Dad’s good side.” She nodded toward the door. “I’ll take you back to see him now.”

“Thank you.”

Ellie led her to a kitchen, where the president was sitting at the table, staring blankly at the wall and holding a glass. Then Ellie left them alone, and Elizabeth said, “Mr. President?”

Bartlet looked at her, and her throat constricted. He looked so much older now than he had the last time she had seen him, just days before. “Elizabeth,” he said. “Come and sit with me.”

She did as he asked. “Sir,” she said, “I’m sure you’ve been hearing this a lot, but I’m so sorry. I don’t know what else to say.”

“I was thinking about you, actually,” he said. “When you went missing in the Philippines. I thought about asking you what it was like.”

“You don’t want to know, sir,” Elizabeth replied.

“My mind is my own worst enemy now, Elizabeth,” he said. “I can’t help imagining things.”

There were many things she wished to say. When all this had happened, and Danny had published his story on the president’s involvement in the sudden and mysterious death of Abdul Shareef, a torrent of questions came to mind. She’d wanted to know what he’d been thinking, ordering an assassination. Wanted to know why he hadn’t expected this kind of retaliation. But all she saw now was a man in pain. Those kinds of things didn’t seem to matter, and it wasn’t as though asking those questions would help. They wouldn’t bring Zoey back, and they wouldn’t change the fact that danger could never be a deterrent to duty.

Gently, Elizabeth laid her hand over his. “Sir, if you need anything…”

“Just sit with me, Elizabeth,” he said. “Just sit for a little while.”

* * *

“Ladies and gentlemen, I’d like to welcome, in her first appearance on _The Daily Show_ , Dr. Elizabeth Weir.”

The lights were blinding, the audience was going crazy, and Elizabeth was praying that she didn’t trip on her way to Jon Stewart’s desk.

Jon was standing up, and they shook hands when Elizabeth got there. “Hey, great to see you,” he said. “Have a seat.”

Elizabeth looked around. “What happened to the couch?” she asked, sitting in the chair next to the desk.

“We got rid of the couch months ago, Doctor,” Jon replied. “Where have you been?”

There was some scattered laughter from the audience, and Elizabeth decided to state the obvious. “I don’t get Comedy Central in the Pegasus galaxy, Jon,” she said.

“Well, Liz— can I call you Liz?”

“No.”

The audience laughed, and Jon was taken aback. “Well, _Elizabeth_ ,” he said, “you should get a friend to tape it for you.”

“How much spare time do you imagine I have?”

Jon shook his head, smiling a little. “Well, in the last couple weeks we’ve been hearing some strange things,” he said. “The Stargate, life on other planets, spaceships, voyages to other galaxies… but we all know _that’s_ not all that important. That’s just global stuff. We could hear about that anywhere. We’ve been getting all kinds of crap about life-sucking aliens and snakes in people’s heads, and it’s really time to move on to something less gross. How did you end up with that colonel, and how much product does he use to get his hair to do that?”

Elizabeth smiled. This was the first time she’d actually acknowledged her relationship with John in public. They hadn’t been secretive about it, but hadn’t gone out of their way to point it out, either. “Well, we met in Antarctica,” she began.

“Romantic place,” he put in.

“Oh, of course,” she replied. “He was sitting in a chair that was actually a piece of Ancient technology, and it turned out that he had the gene required to activate it.”

“So what you’re saying is, your boyfriend’s a mutant.”

“Basically.” Elizabeth smiled wickedly. “I suppose that probably explains the hair.”

* * *

CJ had to admit it: Elizabeth Weir was _good_.

Technically, CJ was reading WTO reports, but she’d stopped that as soon as Jon Stewart came on. The opening segment had made her giggle more than she probably wanted to admit, and Dr. Weir was charming, both with Stewart and the audience. Putting her on that show to give the public a lighter look at the SGC had been a terrific idea.

Donna came in just before the last segment and said, “Have you been watching Jon Stewart?” she asked.

“Yeah,” CJ replied. “The bit with the zoologist and the sea snakes was hilarious.”

“Ooh, it’s coming back on,” Donna said, sitting down on the other side of CJ’s desk.

“Well,” Stewart was saying, “We don’t normally do this, but we don’t find out about aliens every day of the week either, so let’s have a warm welcome for guest number two, Lieutenant Colonel John Sheppard.”

The colonel came out from the wings, and Donna looked at CJ, a little confused. “I didn’t know he was going to be on,” she said.

“Neither did I,” CJ said. “This should be interesting.”

There was a bit of confusion when they realized that there was only one chair for a guest, but then Sheppard sat down and pulled Weir onto his lap. CJ could have sworn that the woman squeaked before settling. “Oh, _please_ ,” CJ said, “she’s sitting on his lap?”

“You know, they make a cute couple,” Donna offered.

“Hold still for a minute. I’m looking for something to throw at you.”

Donna just shrugged.

“So, Colonel,” Stewart was saying, “you’re appearing before the House Foreign Relations committee tomorrow.”

“That’s what they tell me.”

“Well, good luck with that,” he said. “I’d give you pointers, but I’ve never had the pleasure. I imagine that these hearings will get C-SPAN the highest ratings in the network’s history.”

“Probably,” Elizabeth replied. “You going to watch?”

“Me? No, I never pay attention to the news,” Stewart said.

“Really?”

“No. But I might for your hearing. When is it?”

“Next Wednesday. You should watch. Could be exciting.”

Then Sheppard poked her in the ribs. “Stop flirting with him,” he said.

She grinned at him and ruffled his hair. “I’m not flirting. _You_ flirt. I schmooze.”

“Ah, young love,” Stewart commented, looking out to the audience. “Though if you ask me, they act like an old married couple.”

“We do not,” the two answered in unison. That just caused more laughter.

“Well, here’s what I want to know, because I know the committee just won’t be asking the right questions tomorrow,” the host continued. “Are there transporters?”

“Yes,” Sheppard replied.

“Phasers?”

“Sort of.”

“Universal translators?”

“No, everyone just happens to speak English. Kind of convenient.”

“So not only is English-as-the-official-language legislation unnecessary here, it’s totally unnecessary in at least three galaxies?”

“Huh?”

The audience burst out cheering at that, and Stewart smiled, waving at the crowd to get them to settle down. “What about the women?” he asked. “Science fiction tells us that there are loose women in outer space.”

Sheppard shifted in his seat. “What has Elizabeth been telling you?”

“So that’s a yes on the loose women?”

Sheppard looked at Weir, who had one brow raised. “Ah, no comment.”

“Hah! I _knew_ it!” Stewart exclaimed, throwing a celebratory fist in the air. “Space rules.”

“Aren’t you married?” Weir asked.

“Details, details,” he replied. “Well, folks, it’s been terribly fun, but that’s all we have time for. Hope to have you two back whenever you’re in this corner of the galaxy again.”

“Wouldn’t miss it for anything,” Weir replied.

“Good to know,” Stewart said. “And you know, if you’d been here instead of saving the galaxy and all that jazz, I might have voted for you.”

Weir looked at Sheppard, smiling a little. “Well, that would have been a problem, since I wasn’t running.”

“Like I didn’t write in Barney anyway.” He swiveled around to address his audience. “Well, boys and girls, we’ll be speaking to Senator Ron Canter next week, along with some other people that no one cares about anymore now that we know there are aliens. Maybe even in our midst!” Then he shuffled his papers around and added, “And remember, kids, Elizabeth Weir for president in two-thousand-whatever.”

Donna grabbed the remote then and turned the television off. CJ, on the other hand, had forgotten all about the WTO reports. “Did he just endorse her for president?”

“You’re just jealous,” Donna replied.

“Jealous?”

“Because you’ve been here eight years and Jon Stewart’s never asked if he could call you his political girlfriend.”

* * *

Elizabeth had wanted to go up to New York for the show by herself, as John was testifying the next morning and needed the sleep. But John wouldn’t hear of it, which prompted her to ask if he just wanted to be able to say he’d been backstage while his girlfriend flirted with Jon Stewart.

“Thought you didn’t flirt,” he’d said.

In response, she’d merely kissed him.

So he hadn’t had enough sleep, but John had the gift of being able to function on minimal amounts of it. He even managed to tie his tie properly without Elizabeth’s help. They left Elizabeth’s townhouse with their agents and arrived on the steps of the Capitol a few minutes before ten. Outside the building was a huge crowd, and John saw signs ranging from “Marry me, Daniel Jackson” to “Death to aliens.” Not far from where he got out of the car, two kids seemed to be fighting each other with toy lightsabers, until D. C. police escorted them away.

Once in the building and before the committee chamber, Elizabeth smoothed out his lapels and said, “You’ll do what your lawyer’s told you to do, right?”

“Yes, Elizabeth,” he said in an overly patient tone.

She closed her eyes. “This should be easy for you,” she said. “I just don’t want you to screw it up.”

John’s lawyer approached from behind Elizabeth. “Good morning, Colonel,” Tony said. “You ready?”

He looked at Elizabeth and kissed her cheek. “Yeah, I think so.”

Tony led the way into the committee chamber, through the crowd and to the table up front. Elizabeth joined the SGC personnel, who were sitting in the first row of the gallery as a show of solidarity. John took his seat, and a few moments later, Congresswoman Wyatt said, “Will the first witness rise, raise your right hand to God, and swear the oath that’s written in front of you?”

John got to his feet and raised his right hand. “I solemnly swear that the testimony today will be the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help me God.”

* * *

“So, Colonel,” Daniel Jackson was saying at dinner that night, “do you want to reenact the part where you nearly missed the chair when you were coming back from recess?”

Gathered in a classy Washington steakhouse for dinner, the group laughed. John, seated between Carter and Elizabeth, tried not to squirm too much. “I’m blaming Elizabeth,” he said.

“Me?” she replied. “What did I do?”

“You were distracting me.”

She pinched the back of his knee for that. “Was not.”

Across the table, Jack rolled his eyes. “Not while I’m eating, Doctor,” he said.

She and John exchanged a smile.

They’d managed to convince Donna Moss to join them, and she was now seated between Jack and Daniel. “Colonel, I thought you did very well,” she said. “Especially for your first time in a hearing.”

“I was surprised,” Carter remarked, “that it went so easily.”

“Jordan didn’t think he’d have a problem,” Elizabeth replied. “I was only worried that he’d do his usual improvisation.”

“I _can_ follow directions.”

Elizabeth looked at Donna and said, “This is a new skill. He’s very proud.”

Then Travis, Elizabeth’s Diplomatic Service agent on duty, approached her and touched her shoulder. “Dr. Weir, there’s a young lady here who’d like to speak with you,” he said.

Elizabeth and John both turned around then, and John saw a blonde girl who couldn’t be more than seven standing behind the agent. “Hello,” Elizabeth said. “What’s your name?”

“Ruthie Holmstrom,” the little girl replied. “Are you really Elizabeth Weir?”

John looked at Elizabeth, who was smiling. “Yes, I am,” she said. “Would you like to come a little closer and talk?”

She ran up to the table, between Elizabeth and Daniel, her pigtails bouncing. “And you really live on another planet?”

“I do,” Elizabeth replied, and she pointed at John. “So does he.”

“What’s it like?”

“Atlantis is the most beautiful place you could imagine,” she said. “It’s a city that floats on the ocean. Everywhere you look, there’s a window, so you can look out at the water. And the whole city is red and green and blue and glass.”

“Wow.” The girl’s eyes were wide with awe. “Can I come live there too?”

“Well, I’ll tell you what,” Elizabeth replied. “Stargate Command and Atlantis are going to need scientists and doctors and all sorts of people to keep exploring the universe.”

“So maybe someday?”

“Maybe someday, Ruthie.”

The little girl bounced up on her toes. “My mom said I should get you to sign something.”

Elizabeth’s cheeks grew red as the others around her laughed. John patted her shoulder and leaned closer. “So much for anonymity,” he murmured.

“Donna, do you have paper and a pen?” she asked, ignoring him.

Donna did indeed have a pad of paper and a pen in her purse, and Elizabeth wrote out a brief note to Ruthie and signed it. Then, to John’s surprise, she plopped it down in front of him. “You’re all signing it,” she said. “That’s what you get for laughing.”

The pad went around the table while Elizabeth continued talking to Ruthie, though John noticed that Donna simply passed it from Jack to Daniel. Then, as Elizabeth tore off the sheet of paper and sent the girl on her way, there was a bright flash. John looked up, startled, and started to get out of his chair while he instinctively reached for a gun that wasn’t there. Then he saw a man with a camera, and one of the military security men escorting him out of the restaurant. Travis hurried after them, and then came back and reported to Elizabeth.

“Ma’am, I think that’s going to be just the first attempt tonight,” he said. “There’s quite a crowd gathered outside.”

“You think we should go?” she asked.

“If you’re ready, I don’t think we should mess around.”

“I can skip dessert.” She then said to the group, “I think we should get the check.”

“If you want to leave now, I can cover you two, Doctor,” Carter said.

“Are you sure?”

The woman shrugged. “You can pay me back later.”

John smiled. “And here I thought a pretty women was offering to buy me dinner.”

Carter looked nonplussed. “You know, Colonel, most of the men who flirt with me end up dead.”

He looked from her to Elizabeth and back again. “I wasn’t flirting!”

“John,” Elizabeth said, “you flirt with _all_ women.”

“This is all a big conspiracy.”

Donna, in the meanwhile, had gotten the waiter’s attention and the check. A few minutes later, they stepped out of the restaurant and into a growing crowd. “Next time, we should go in disguise,” John said as he put on his hat.

“I can dye my hair blonde again,” Elizabeth replied, lacing her fingers through his.

“On second thought, maybe we should just stay in.”

He meant it, too. No matter the face he’d been putting on as they left the restaurant, the sudden appearance of the photographer had unnerved him. Though he usually fared well when put on the spot, he didn’t like getting caught off-guard. He knew he’d feel better when they got back to Elizabeth’s house, where he wouldn’t feel threatened by the sight of open windows above and the occasional unfriendly face nearby.

There was no easy way out, so John just pushed through the crowd, following Jack and a couple of the Air Force security people. “Dr. Weir,” Travis said, from behind Elizabeth, “are you sure you don’t want to wait until we can disperse the crowd?”

“I’m fine, Travis,” she said. Then the other security people came up around them and started parting the crowd so they could get through more easily.

“I don’t like this,” Travis was saying. “It’s too open. Next time we’re taking you in and out through back exits.”

“Travis, we’re parked a block away,” she replied.

“I’m with him,” John said.

“Of course you are.”

But the sinking feeling in John’s stomach wasn’t going away. If anything, it was getting much, much worse. He honestly wouldn’t have been surprised to hear the screech of a Wraith dart overhead, even though he was in the wrong galaxy for that. He was squeezing Elizabeth’s hand too tightly, and she said in a worried tone, “John?”

He saw another open window across the street, and then a shot rang out. “Everybody down!” he shouted, knocking Elizabeth to the sidewalk and covering her as a second shot was fired.

Then there was a third, and chaos broke out around them.


	9. Chapter 9

_Washington, D. C.  
Two years earlier_

Two unmarked, black SUVs pulled up to a row of townhouses in Georgetown in the middle of a Tuesday morning. Had anyone looked out a window to the street, nothing would have seemed terribly unusual, until the President of the United States stepped out onto the sidewalk.

Jed had had Debbie put this visit on his schedule a week earlier, but until the moment he got to the door and rang the bell, he debated whether or not this was a good idea. It wasn’t that he didn’t want to see Elizabeth before she headed off to another galaxy, but he was concerned that once in her presence, he might ask her to back out.

Then the door swung open, and Elizabeth said, “Mr. President!”

“Hello, Elizabeth,” he replied, hands in his pockets. “Can I come in?”

“Certainly,” she said, stepping out of the way to let him and two agents in with him.

He walked through her foyer and into the living room, taking in his surroundings. It wasn’t lavishly decorated, but that would have seemed out of character. The only thing that was really odd about the place was the number of boxes sitting around. “Nice place,” he said.

“Thank you, sir,” she replied. She had followed him, her arms crossed. “I’m sorry for the mess. I’ve been trying to pack some things up before I leave.”

“You don’t have to apologize,” Jed answered. “I’m the one who dropped in unannounced.”

He sat down in a wingback chair, and Elizabeth sat across from him on the sofa. “Why did you drop in, sir?” she asked.

Jed clasped his hands. “I don’t know how many times I’ve wanted to pick up the phone and tell you some story about people objecting to you going on this mission, Elizabeth,” he said. “Or that I have a job for you at the State Department. Or that I want to make you vice president instead of Russell.”

He didn’t say it, but Elizabeth had been mentioned by more than one person when Vice President Hoynes had resigned. Some Republicans had liked the idea. Even he would have liked it. But she wasn’t ready for that yet.

“You’re a daughter to me, Elizabeth,” he continued. “Just as much as my own flesh and blood. I don’t want to send you on a suicide mission.”

“But?” she prompted.

“You’re the right person for the job.”

They sat in silence until Elizabeth shifted forward. “Sir,” she said, “why am I the right person for this job? I know what you told me about Walken and the face of the SGC when it goes public, but there are others who could have done this.”

“I have faith in you,” he said. “That isn’t something I can find just anywhere.”

“And that outweighs the danger?”

“Elizabeth,” Jed replied, “if danger were a legitimate reason not to do things, nothing worthwhile would ever get done.”

* * *

Elizabeth was too surprised to scream.

When she hit the ground, she was aware of only a few, random impressions—sharp pain in the arm she’d landed on, John’s weight covering her body, the shattering of glass overhead. “Stay down,” John was saying, as if she could get up when he was on top of her like this.

There were more shots, closer this time. Then there was nothing but her heartbeat and John’s breath, hot against her face. “John?” she managed. “What’s going on?”

He didn’t answer her, or if he did, she didn’t hear. She heard a siren instead, piercing through her narrow focus and drawing her out to the bigger picture of what was going on around her. Then she saw feet coming toward her, and Travis Keller said, “Dr. Weir, Colonel Sheppard, are you all right?”

“I’m fine,” John said, pushing himself up.

“I don’t know how you managed to react that fast,” the agent said.

“I was in worse than this three weeks ago,” John replied.

While the men were talking, Elizabeth was still just lying there, trying to figure out what had happened. Then John looked down at her, frowning, and asked, “Elizabeth, are you hurt?”

“My arm,” she said, trying to push herself up. But the moment her right arm moved, that extreme pain was back, and she cried out.

“Elizabeth!” John had his hand behind her head in a moment. “Travis, are there paramedics here yet? I think her arm’s broken.”

“No, just police,” Travis replied. “Dr. Weir, can you sit up if we help you?”

Slowly, Elizabeth nodded, and the two men helped her up, with as little movement of her arm as possible. Then John unbuttoned the jacket of his uniform and draped it around her shoulders. Their eyes met, and his frown deepened. “Is there anything else?” he asked, wiping her cheeks. She hadn’t realized she was crying.

“I think that’s it,” she replied. “What happened?”

“Someone opened fire across the street,” Travis said. “He was taken down.”

Elizabeth closed her eyes for a moment, taking that in. “Is anyone else hurt?”

Travis shook his head. “Miss Moss was grazed in the hand, and some people have minor cuts from the glass shattering, but no one’s seriously hurt,” he said. “Of course, if it hadn’t been for Colonel Sheppard’s reflexes, one or both of you would probably be a lot worse off.”

She looked at John, who touched her hair. “No need to thank me, sweetheart,” he said, leaning forward to kiss her lightly.

“We’ll just add it to my tab,” she replied.

* * *

“You know what’s weird about this?”

Jed didn’t want to know the answer to Abbey’s question, really. It was a Friday night, and his wife was snuggled up against him while they watched an old movie in the Residence. If all his Friday nights could be this way, he’d die a happy man.

Unfortunately, Abbey continued without prompting. “It’s so quiet,” she said. “China and Taiwan don’t care about each other, India and Pakistan care less about each other than usual, there doesn’t seem to be anything immediately wrong with the galaxy at large…”

“Yeah,” Jed replied. “I should make an earth-shattering announcement like this once a month. Really makes my life easier. Congress is always cranky about something, so I might as well keep everything else quiet.”

Abbey started tracing patterns on his knee. “Have there been medical discoveries made because of the Stargate, Jed?” she asked.

Jed exhaled slowly. That was a loaded question. “I don’t think that’s what you’re asking, Abbey. I think you’re asking if there’s a cure for multiple sclerosis.”

Uncharacteristically, she said nothing. Jed continued. “They found a drug to treat Alzheimer’s. It’s been tested over the last year. Elizabeth Weir can give pretty good confirmation that it works, too.”

“And how did Secretary Weir get into the test pool for the drug?” Abbey asked. “Jed, you _know_ that’s not ethical.”

“She deserved a last goodbye, Abbey, and what’s done is done,” he replied.

“So some otherwise healthy patient was denied the opportunity because you had to give your protégé a favor, and an experimental drug was given to a dying man?”

“Abbey, I thought we stopped having this argument years ago.”

“We did.” She narrowed her eyes. “Any other cures you people have found?”

The cure for all disease, a drug named tretonin, being chiefly composed of ground-up Goa’uld, was likely to go over quite badly, so Jed looked for a way to escape answering. As he decided that there wasn’t one, there was a knock on the door, and Ron Butterfield entered. “Mr. President, Mrs. Bartlet, I’m sorry to disturb you,” he said.

“What can I do for you, Ron?” Jed asked, turning the television off and standing up.

“There’s been an incident,” the agent replied. “A shooting outside a restaurant which several personnel from Stargate Command and Donna Moss were leaving.”

Abbey got up too. “Was anyone hurt?”

“No one seriously,” Ron said. “Miss Moss sustained a minor injury to her left hand, and Dr. Weir’s right arm was broken.”

“Broken?” Jed repeated. “How?”

“As I understand it, Colonel Sheppard was pushing her to the ground and broke her arm.”

“Well, John’s never going to live that down,” Abbey said. “Were they taken to GW? I should go see them.”

“Yes, ma’am, they were,” Ron replied. “I’ll call Agent Keller and let him know that you’re on your way. I think he’d rather not have any more surprises tonight.”

Abbey left to retrieve shoes and a coat, and Jed put his hands in his pockets. “The shooter, Ron?”

“He’s dead,” the agent informed him. “The investigation’s already begun. At this point, we don’t even know who the target was. Everyone there except for Donna has gotten death threats since the disclosure.”

Jed nodded. “Thanks, Ron.”

“Thank you, Mr. President.”

* * *

John had no idea how long it took them to set Elizabeth’s arm, but it felt like twelve hours had gone by before her arm was set in plaster. As a measure of protection (and probably at Travis Keller’s insistence), they were in a private room, along with Donna Moss. John stood near the door, arms crossed over his chest. His jacket was around Elizabeth’s shoulders again.

“You’re brooding,” she said quietly. “There was nothing you could have done to stop this, John. You probably saved my life.”

“There’s always something,” John replied, slowly crossing the room to her. “I could have insisted that we go out the back way.”

“John, please, don’t do this,” Elizabeth said. “For once, don’t do this.”

He touched her cheek, and from the corner of his eye he saw Donna turn away discreetly. When Elizabeth made no objection, he whispered her name and kissed her.

Her lips were chapped, her reaction slow. It had been a while since they’d taken a moment like this. Either they’d been too busy, or she’d been trying not to lose herself in grief at the loss of her father. But for now, he could imagine that they were back in Atlantis—back at home—in the infirmary, after a mission gone awry. This was as it should have been.

For a long time after the kiss ended, they stayed silent, and John kissed her forehead before pulling her into a soft embrace. Before long, though, he heard a familiar voice down the hall, and he looked up at the open doorway just in time to see Abbey Bartlet come into view, an unfamiliar blonde woman with her. John didn’t release Elizabeth, and she made no move to withdraw herself.

He started rubbing her back, and then made eye contact with the First Lady. Abbey took the hint, however, and spoke to Donna first. “How are you feeling, Donna?” she asked. “They gave you something for the pain?”

The voice was enough to break the spell, though, and Elizabeth leaned back away from John, looking up at him. While Abbey, Donna, and the stranger spoke, he remembered the first time Elizabeth had thrown her arms around him, when he’d been rescued miraculously during the siege on their city the previous year. For a moment, he’d felt such relief to know she was safe, and it wasn’t until he breathed in the scent of her that he realized just how close she was. Then it was over, and in the ensuing awkwardness, he just wanted to hug her again. Somewhere along the way they’d outgrown the need for words.

Then, before another month had passed, he’d kissed her, bedded her. That much had probably surprised them more than it had surprised anyone else.

Abbey finally approached them, and they looked away from each other at last. “Elizabeth,” Abbey said, “how are you feeling?”

“I’m fine, Abbey,” Elizabeth replied. Her fingers were wrapped around John’s.

“Any severe pain?” the First Lady continued.

“Mom,” said the blonde woman with her, “you realize the doctors who work here are good at their jobs, right?”

“Elizabeth’s a friend and I’m a doctor, so why shouldn’t I?”

“It’s ethically questionable?”

Abbey evidently decided to change the subject. “John, I don’t believe you’ve met my middle daughter,” she said, gesturing to the younger woman.

“I don’t think so.” He held out his hand. “John Sheppard.”

“Ellie Bartlet,” she replied, shaking his hand firmly. “Nice to meet you.”

“So, Elizabeth,” Abbey began.

“Ma’am, I really am fine,” Elizabeth interrupted. “As well as you’d expect after what happened.”

“Don’t worry about her, Elizabeth,” said Ellie. “She’s just making sure she can say her last high-profile patient wasn’t Elmo.”

John blinked a few times. “What?”

“It’s a long story,” Ellie replied.

“You really don’t pay attention to the news, do you, John?” Abbey asked. “I was on _Sesame Street_ and everything.”

“When was this?”

“Oh, a little over two years ago.”

John exchanged a glance with Elizabeth. “I was in Antarctica. Don’t think we got PBS.”

There was a sharp rap at the door, and John whirled around to see Travis looking in expectantly. “Dr. Weir?” he said.

“Come in, Travis,” she replied. “Have you met the First Lady or Eleanor Bartlet?”

“No, ma’am.” He looked at Abbey and nodded respectfully. “It’s nice to meet you, Dr. Bartlet. Doctors Bartlet, I guess.”

The Bartlet women smiled graciously, and Travis returned his attention to Elizabeth. “The doctor said he’d be in here in a few minutes to give you one last once-over,” he explained.

“Good to know,” Elizabeth said. “I’m anxious to get out of here.”

“Perfectly understandable, ma’am,” Travis replied. “Karl’s here. He’s going to take the rest of my shift. I’ve got to get to headquarters to discuss some extra security procedures for the memorial on Saturday.”

“Wait just a second,” John interjected, “you’re going through with the memorial service?”

Elizabeth looked up at him, blinking. “Why wouldn’t I?”

“Because you were _shot at_ tonight, Elizabeth,” he replied. “I know, I know, we don’t know who the target was, but it probably wasn’t any single one of us. Donna got shot,” he said, pointing across the room at her, “probably because she was with all of us in this mess. So now you’re going to continue making these public appearances?”

“John,” she said, clearly annoyed, “I’ve seen you dead. Not on death’s door. Actually dead. It didn’t stop you from going off-world again after Carson cleared you for active duty. It didn’t stop me from sending you on missions.” Her shoulders had that determined set to them. “A very wise man once told me that danger can’t be a true deterrent of duty, because if it were, we’d never do anything worthwhile.

“That can’t just be words, John,” she continued. “Do you remember what the president said to us last year? We have to find the truth in those words. Otherwise it’s just meaningless.” She took a deep breath. “I have a responsibility to those men and women who died under my command. One final responsibility, and God help me, I’m going to do it.”

John was so stunned by her sudden outburst that he couldn’t formulate an immediate response, not even a capitulation. Then, from the door, there came a new voice. “Nicely spoken, Doctor,” a man said.

John looked, but didn’t recognize the man. That was beginning to be the story of his life. “Josh,” Elizabeth said, “I didn’t see you there.”

“I got here just in time for the campaign speech,” he said. “I really came to see Donna, though.”

Donna got up then and walked toward the group. “I’m fine, Josh,” she replied. “It’s just a graze.”

“Just a—Donna,” he replied. “You’re a lot more lackadaisical about this than I was.”

“When you were shot at, you didn’t wake up for almost two days,” she countered.

“Donna…”

“Josh, I’m _fine_.” Donna straightened. “Don’t make me get Dr. Weir to make my argument for me.”

The expression on Josh’s face was odd and almost unreadable. Then he grabbed her uninjured hand and dragged her out into the hallway. John wasn’t sure what effect that was supposed to have, as everyone in the room could soon hear a rather impressive argument going on outside. Most of the yelling was coming from Josh.

Suddenly, though, the noise stopped, and John looked at Elizabeth, frowning. Abbey, on the other hand, walked softly to the door and peeked outside. She looked back at the others with a huge smile on her face, and Ellie ran to the door to see what was going on.

Elizabeth had a smirk on her face, too, even though she didn’t get off the examination bed. “What’s going on?” John asked quietly.

“Remember what Rodney told us in Sydney?” she said. “The pool about us?”

John nodded. “What about it?”

“I think there’s been a pool going about Josh and Donna for a lot longer.”

John couldn’t help but think he’d stumbled into yet another situation where his total lack of political acumen, coupled with his political apathy, was putting him at a severe disadvantage. Being surrounded by Washington insiders all the time was starting to make him feel like he lived on a desert island, just barely out of reach of the mainland.

Of course, he _did_ live on an island of sorts.

When he walked up to the door, out of pure curiosity, Josh and Donna were still kissing.

* * *

By morning, Elizabeth was feeling well enough to tease John mercilessly about having broken her arm.

She never would have poked him about it if she hadn’t been well aware that he was feeling better about it. He would get that chagrined look on his face when she brought it up, the one that said things weren’t completely all right, but that he’d get over it. She hadn’t even been responsible for all of the mentions of it. They’d been watching CNN while eating breakfast in bed, and between the coverage of the shooting and the fact that she couldn’t hold a spoon in her right hand, there were plenty of reminders.

Jordan Kendall, Abbey Bartlet, and the President himself had all insisted that she needed to take at least half a day off. Her testimony was mostly written already, her speech for the memorial was written, and since everyone else thought she needed a day off, she figured she could agree just this once. It didn’t hurt that whenever she suggested getting out of the house and doing something, John would give her a very compelling reason to stay inside. If nothing else, the man was certainly persuasive.

They did eventually migrate down to the living room, dressed in warm, comfortable pajamas. One of the agents on duty (Elizabeth imagined that the other was outside) retreated to the office, though not without rolling her eyes at them first. Then, after lunch and some heavy making out, they were cuddled up together on the sofa, John flipping through channels on the television. Through the windows, Elizabeth could see that it was snowing.

“Wait,” Elizabeth said, when he passed C-SPAN. “I wanted to see Sarah’s testimony.”

John ran his hand up her side and then kissed her neck. “Can’t you ever get away from politics?” he murmured.

“I’m not sure I’d know what to do with myself if I did,” she replied.

He sighed. “I was afraid of that.”

Gardner and her attorney were walking up to the table where John had been sitting the previous day. “Dr. Gardner,” Andi Wyatt said, “thank you for coming today. If you would, please, stand up, raise your right hand, and read the oath in front of you.”

The archaeologist did as she was instructed and took her seat again. “Doctor,” Wyatt continued, “if you’d like, you may take the next few minutes to give an opening statement.”

“Thank you, Madam Chairwoman,” Sarah replied. She cleared her throat. “Nearly five years ago, I was working with the late Dr. David Jordan, who was for many years my teacher, mentor, and friend. In that time, we were working on the recently rediscovered artifacts of the Steward expedition. They were rumored to be cursed.”

“Cursed?” John whispered, sounding skeptical.

“Shh,” Elizabeth said. “I’m trying to listen.”

“Among the artifacts were two canopic jars, nicknamed the Osiris and Isis jars,” Sarah continued. “Osiris was, according to Egyptian legend, the first pharoah, and Isis was his consort. In reality, they were both Goa’uld symbiotes, like many gods and goddesses of several cultures. The myth says that Osiris was murdered by his brother Seth, but five years ago we learned that Seth actually removed the Goa’uld symbiotes, both Osiris and Isis, from their human hosts and placed them canopic jars, as a sort of banishment.”

She turned a page in her notes. Elizabeth suspected she didn’t need those notes in the first place. “In the course of our studies of the Osiris jar, we had difficulty obtaining permission to scan the jar in order to find out what was inside it. It was sealed, and Dr. Jordan did not wish to break the seal, as we were supposed to hand everything over to the Egyptian government. I… opened it. Inside was the symbiote Osiris, still alive after three thousand years in captivity.

“What happened after that was a nightmare which consumed three years of my life. The Goa’uld implanted itself in me, and I lost control of my body. I watched myself kill innocent people, and harm my friends when they were trying to help me. Through me, Osiris escaped Earth in a long-buried shuttle, and it was a long time before SG-1 was able to rescue me.”

She pushed her hair back behind her ear. “What happened to me could have happened to anyone who handled that jar, and what’s more, it would have happened whether the Stargate was in active use or not. I know Osiris’ plans for this planet, the havoc he intended to wreak in reclaiming his domain. In the past few days, I have seen and heard many members of this committee stating categorically that Stargate Command has been a blight on mankind. I will not deny that they have made mistakes. However, were it not for Stargate Command, I would not have been saved from something which they had not caused. Those who would posit that the SGC has solved no crisis which it did not create are woefully mistaken. I don’t know what you would hope to gain from such accusations, but from experience, I would caution you against the misguided use of what power your people have granted you.”

Elizabeth’s eyes were wide open before a visibly unsettled Congresswoman Wyatt directed another representative to begin with questioning. “Did it just get cold in here?” John asked.

Elizabeth was rubbing her arms already. “Have you read the reports on Osiris?”

“Most of them, yeah.”

“They weren’t a comfortable read,” she said, “but hearing her talk about it—”

“Is about ten times worse.” He pulled her a little closer. “Just be thankful that your hearing probably isn’t going to be that disconcerting.”

They continued watching the hearings for a while, knowing that even if the rest of Sarah’s testimony only took half an hour, Andi would call a recess. No one would be able to follow something so horrifying as Dr. Gardner’s calm explanation of how a Goa’uld symbiote implanted itself in the spinal cord.

Elizabeth’s cell phone rang a little while later, and she reluctantly rose to answer it. “Hello, Elizabeth Weir speaking.”

“Elizabeth, it’s Jordan,” the caller said. “I hate to do this to you, but we just got word from Congressman Brentwood’s office.”

A feeling of dread washed all over her. “What is it?”

“He’s planning on spending his five minutes asking you about your relationship with John,” Jordan replied. “I know we all told you to take the day off, but we need to formulate a strategy.”

Elizabeth rubbed her hand over her eyes. “I’ll be there as quickly as possible.”

As she hung up, John said, “You’ll be where as quickly as possible?”

“Jordan’s office,” she replied. “She just found out that one of the Congressmen is planning on asking me some potentially damaging questions about you and me.”

“As in… this relationship?”

She nodded. “Jordan and I had discussed the possibility when we first talked about my testimony. But we figured there were bigger fish to fry.”

He didn’t reply, staring blankly at the television, and she ran upstairs to change clothes. When she came down again, buttoning up her suit jacket, he was still sitting there. “John, are you all right?” she asked.

“I’m fine,” he answered dispassionately.

But she knew that face, that voice, well enough to know he was unnerved by something. She walked up to him and said, “No, you’re not.”

He got up and walked away from her. “You need to get to Jordan’s office,” he said. “If this is going to cause trouble, you need to do something about it.”

She wanted to stay, wanted to convince him to tell her what was really bothering him, but what he’d said was true. She left without another word.

It was late that evening before she returned. John was still up, but uncommunicative. Had Elizabeth been less exhausted, she might have pressed him for an explanation, but instead she told him she was going to bed. When she got no real answer, she went upstairs alone.

Even after a long, relaxing bath, sleep didn’t come easily to her. She lay awake in the dark for a long time, until John came into the room. Quietly, he said, “Elizabeth, you awake?”

She didn’t open her mouth or her eyes. John knew her to be a heavy sleeper, and he didn’t check to see if she wasn’t asleep already. A few minutes later, he’d gotten into bed with her, but he might as well have been in a house across the street, for all the distance between them.

They’d had fights before, but Elizabeth wasn’t even entirely certain what had precipitated this. And since Sydney, they’d never let an argument last through a night. Somehow this—ignoring whatever had happened and yet sleeping in the same bed—was worse than any insubordination might have been.

* * *

Somehow, John had known that half the reason he and Elizabeth had been called back to Earth together was just that—they were together. It was good publicity to see the Stargate people acting like normal human beings, and the stupid-in-love air that they tended to exude when they weren’t working certainly humanized them.

Now, though, it was strange to be seen with her in public. He thought about all the times he’d stood in line at the grocery store, skimming the headlines that chronicled the ins and outs of celebrity relationships. He’d never in his life imagined that he’d sympathize with them. Since Elizabeth had gotten the call about her testimony the next week, they hadn’t had a real conversation. She’d as much as told him that he’d become a political liability to her, and this sentiment didn’t see to bother her at all.

But now they were walking into the National Cathedral together, for the memorial service for those who had died under their command in Atlantis. Protocol would have dictated that they be seated together anyway, but they also had to appear as though nothing was wrong. Elizabeth never said as much, but John could sense that this was the case.

The memorial was a lovely service. Jack O’Neill spoke for a while, with rare, succinct eloquence about the tradition of self-sacrifice in the SGC. He spoke of men and women who had died in the service of their country, certainly, but also of those yet living who had given up so much of their lives to serve.

It was the perfect segue into Elizabeth’s remarks. She was nervous when she got to the podium, but John doubted that anyone else would notice. She didn’t normally push her hair back behind her ear like that when she was calm, but it was one of those details that he knew and others didn’t.

“A little over two years ago,” she began, “President Bartlet called me to the White House. I had a class to teach that afternoon, so I was sincerely hoping that they weren’t running as late as they usually do there.” John glanced down the front row to see the president chuckling good-naturedly. “I never made it to that class, though, because President Bartlet told me that there are aliens and that he wanted me to run a place called Stargate Command.

“Those early days were rough. The people at the SGC were good people, but they didn’t trust me. I hadn’t earned it. I’m not sure I ever did, but once the crisis had passed, I was placed in charge of one of the most terrifying things imaginable. The Atlantis expedition.”

Elizabeth paused, gazing out over the packed cathedral. For a moment, John could imagine her at a very different lectern, giving a very different speech. “No one had done anything like this,” she continued. “No one had formed a group of the world’s best and brightest to set out into space to find the lost city of Atlantis. In many ways, we had no idea what we were getting into. All we knew when we stepped through the Stargate—some of us for the first time ever—was that we might never return home.”

She looked down, taking a deep breath. “We anticipated an exploratory mission; we became a military one. We anticipated meeting the builders of the lost city; we found it abandoned. Friends in this new galaxy were hard to find, and even harder to keep. In the end, we found strength in each other, because our common citizenship of the planet Earth was strong enough to keep us all together. In the Pegasus galaxy, I have found friendship and camaraderie and love in the most unexpected places.”

For a moment her eyes rested on John, and he gave her a small nod. Elizabeth looked back at her audience at large. “Along the way, many of these new friends and colleagues gave their lives, some in the pursuit of knowledge, but more often in the line of fire, and often to save their comrades. There are many here today who have lost loved ones, and today we remember them and their sacrifice. We remember that they died with honor, in pursuit of a destiny greater than themselves. They knew that the price could be high, and they did not shrink from it.”

John rose then, knowing that he had what was potentially the most difficult task of all in this service. Elizabeth had wanted to do it herself, but they both knew that he needed to do something too, and that this was more appropriate for him. She stepped back from the podium when he reached it, but didn’t go back to her seat. As was so common with them, she stood by him as he looked down at his very simple notes and began to read.

“We remember Colonel Marshall Sumner,” he said. “Sergeant Kevin Masters. Corporal Michael Douger. Dr. Matthew Abrams. Dr. Brendan Gaul. Dr. Joachim Wagner. Dr. Mary Johnson. Sergeant Major Chris Hays. Sergeant Jake Peterson. Dr. Céleste Dumais. Sergeant Alex Markham. Sergeant Alan Smith.”

John paused a moment and glanced at Elizabeth. “Dr. Peter Grodin,” he read. From there on it got more difficult—names of people he barely knew who had died during the siege the previous year, names of men and women who had died in their first missions off-world, names of people who had become his friends. Every name carried with it the terrible truth that they had all died too young, before their promise was realized. It also served to remind him one more time of how dangerous his life was. But Elizabeth was right: there was no risk too great if the task was a worthy one.

When the service had concluded, it took them a long time to get out of the cathedral. Amazingly, Travis and the other agents present allowed those who had come to grieve to come up to Elizabeth, and she spoke to each of them, many in their mother tongues. It was truly a remarkable sight, so many men and women of different nationalities, brought together because of their loved ones and the sacrifices those loved ones had made.

Ultimately, they were also brought together by Elizabeth Weir. And that was something remarkable too.


	10. Chapter 10

Despite a weekend of hard work, Elizabeth and Jordan had failed to come up with satisfactory answers to Elizabeth’s relationship with John. Somewhere along the way she’d decided to take the advice her father would have given her: when on the spot, tell the truth, because it would be easier to keep straight than a lie. Most of the time, anyway.

Yes, she was close to John Sheppard. Yes, she was openly living with him. In other words, yes, she was in a relationship the commander of the military contingent of the expedition. Yes, she was screwing her subordinate.

She and Jordan were both agreed that this was likely to make the congressman look worse than she would, but it wasn’t going to help matters much. They were also agreed that Brentwood would have to work hard to prove the relevancy of his questions to the topic of her hearing, but refusing to answer questions unless he proved that wouldn’t play well either. “Damned if you do, damned if you don’t,” Jordan had said in summary.

Elizabeth had looked at her notes and thought of John, and how they still hadn’t addressed whatever he was mad about. “Well,” she’d replied wryly, “it wouldn’t be a proper Congressional hearing if no one admitted to a sex scandal.”

Now, she and Jordan were sitting before the committee, and Andrea Wyatt was about to start questioning her. Brentwood would come immediately after Andi. They’d made the decision that John needed to leave the room before that, as they didn’t want the cameras to find him while questions about the relationship were being asked.

“Dr. Weir, there’s an audio recording system of some sort in the control room of Atlantis, correct?” Andi asked.

Elizabeth blinked a few times. “Yes, Congresswoman,” she replied. “Dr. McKay has described it as the equivalent of the cockpit voice recorder in an airplane. It records everything that goes on in the control room, including radio transmissions.”

“Dr. McKay was kind enough to send the entire archive of recordings from the control room upon the request of this committee,” Andi said. “I’d like to play a short excerpt from a day approximately a year and a half ago, when Atlantis was under siege. Could you explain in brief the sequence of events?”

Jordan put her hand over the microphone. “Do you know where she’s going with this?” she asked.

“I’m not sure.” Jordan pulled her hand back, and Elizabeth replied, “Radek Zelenka had managed to activate the deep space sensors in the city and discovered that there were three hive ships heading to the planet. We had two weeks to prepare. We managed to send a distress call to Earth, who sent Colonel Dillon Everett with weapons and manpower. The _Daedalus_ , under Colonel Steven Caldwell’s command, was coming in four days. By the time Everett arrived, we had managed to destroy one of the hive ships on our own.

“The situation was… grim, to say the least,” she continued. “The one idea we’d had was to figure out how to operate a puddle jumper—a small space craft of Lantean design—remotely and load it with a nuclear device, which would detonate when the jumper collided with the hive ship. But then we lost the only power source we had which was powerful enough to operate them remotely, which meant a pilot would be required to carry out the plan.”

It was getting more difficult to talk about it, so Elizabeth was grateful when Andi stopped her. “I’m going to play an excerpt now,” she said. “I’ll have a few questions at the end.”

“ _Colonel, we have a problem._ ” Elizabeth’s voice rang out in the chamber, and she gasped, knowing where this was going.

“ _What is it?_ ” Everett asked.

“ _We may need to give the order to evacuate._ ”

Then there were footsteps pounding into the room. “ _Elizabeth, wait,_ ” John said.

There was a long pause, and Elizabeth looked down, closing her eyes. Even though she knew he’d survived—knew he was sitting behind her—it was hard to listen to this. “ _You_ can’t.”

“ _I have to, and you know it._ ”

“ _John…_ ” Elizabeth swallowed hard. “ _Go._ ”

Then Everett’s voice cut in again. “ _What’s the status on that damn jumper?_ ”

There was a pause before Elizabeth said, “ _It’s on its way._ ”

The recording stopped, and Elizabeth blinked a few times, taking a deep breath. Then Congresswoman Wyatt said, “Doctor, for the sake of clarity, let me ask: was there any chance of survival for then Major Sheppard?”

“Barring an act of God, no,” Elizabeth replied. “We knew the _Daedalus_ was en route, but we had no idea it was so close, or that it’d be able to rescue him even if it got there in time. For all intents and purposes, I had sent him to his death.”

Elizabeth pressed her lips together, hoping that Wyatt wasn’t going to play any more of the recording. That day had been hard enough when it happened, and had replayed itself in her dreams often enough. She didn’t need to relive it in front of the world.

“I only have one more question for you, Doctor,” Andi said. “We’ve heard a great deal in the course of these hearings and on television about how the Stargate will change hunanity for the better. Would you agree, and would you say that your experience in Atlantis has changed you in any specific way?”

Elizabeth took a deep breath and smiled quickly. “I believe the Stargate has already done great good for humanity, if you’re willing to expand your definition of humanity to include those humans who were not born on this planet,” she said. “Millions in our galaxy are now free from the oppression of the Goa’uld, largely thanks to the tireless efforts of the SGC to overthrow the Goa’uld and allow those human populations to live and govern and worship as they please. Manifest destiny cannot extend to the stars, and that is not the mandate of Stargate Command or the Atlantis expedition. But as humans we learn; we explore; we help those who cannot help themselves. We came out of the cave. We can’t go back. To do so denies our humanity.”

She looked down for a moment. “As for me personally,” she continued, “on our first day in Atlantis, Colonel Sheppard and I had an argument over something he wanted to do. I told him it wasn’t worth the risk of lives, even though it was the right thing to do. The truth of the matter was that I had already lost people in my expedition, just hours after we left Earth, and I was terrified at the thought of losing more. 

“In my opening statement today I said two things: that everything that happened under my command is my responsibility, and that I left Earth utterly unprepared for the task that lay ahead of me. Since that first day, I’ve learned that sometimes great sacrifice is necessary for the greater good, even if it means losing those whom I care about the most.”

Jordan glanced at her while Andi finished up, and then she leaned forward. “Madam Chairwoman, may I request a short recess?”

“Certainly,” said Andi. “Let’s take ten minutes, and I’d be thrilled if everyone would actually keep it under half an hour.”

Andi gaveled the recess, and Elizabeth got up almost immediately, her throat still constricted somewhat. John got up to her first, however, and pulled her into a tight embrace. “Nice speech,” he said.

“I don’t know where all that came from,” she replied.

They stood in silence for a while, heedless of the cameras flashing all around them. It felt different now, like the awkwardness that had existed between them was lessening little by little. They still had to talk about what was going on, but Elizabeth felt, for just a moment, like she was the only person in the country’s history whose relationship had been helped by Congressional inquiry.

He let her leave the hall after a while, and he wasn’t in there when she returned. He’d not been happy about the idea of him not being there through all of her testimony, but had reluctantly agreed that he shouldn’t be there during Brentwood’s questioning. When Elizabeth reached her seat, Andi called the committee back into session and said, “Congressman Brentwood has the floor.”

Brentwood looked at Elizabeth for a moment, and then looked down at his notes for a long time. The photographers seated on the floor between committee and witness started taking pictures again in earnest, and Elizabeth took a drink from her glass of water. Then Brentwood leaned forward, looking at Andi. “Madam Chairwoman, I have no questions at this time,” he said.

Over the murmur of the audience, Andi said, “In that case, Mr. Grange of South Dakota has the floor.” She looked at Elizabeth and gave her a very small nod of acknowledgment. Elizabeth just looked at Jordan, who seemed just as stunned as she.

* * *

_Atlantis  
One year earlier_

John Sheppard had been held hostage more often than he’d liked to have been. It was never a fun experience, but this time it was particularly unpleasant. An archaeological dig had turned sour when the Genii showed up, and he’d had to solve a math puzzle that self-proclaimed genius Rodney McKay couldn’t figure out. They’d found the ZPM they were looking for, but then the native people had refused to let them take it back to Atlantis. It was a bit of a blow, and that was _before_ he’d found out that there were three Wraith hive ships on their way to eat them all and get to Earth.

Yeah, it had been one hell of a depressing day.

It was weekly movie night, but with everything that had happened in the last several hours, it was understandable that few people actually stuck through all of the first Terminator movie. Shortly after the credits began rolling, John was left alone in the lounge, staring at nothing. By the time the sophisticated Ancient system, which had been hotwired to play their Earth media a long time ago, had shut itself down, he heard footsteps coming by the room. Then they stopped, and Elizabeth Weir walked in.

“Hey,” she said. “Didn’t expect to find you here.”

“Yeah,” he replied, “well, my leg muscles decided that getting up was too much work.”

He looked over his shoulder at her and had to swallow suddenly. He’d known from the moment he’d first laid eyes on her that she was attractive, but she rarely looked so casual. She was wearing a pair of tight jeans and a hoodie, zipped up just far enough for him to get a glimpse of the low-cut shirt underneath.

“I was going to come looking for you in your quarters,” she explained, and suddenly John was glad she hadn’t found him there. He’d been having far too many completely inappropriate fantasies about her lately as it was. “Think you could summon the strength to come for a walk?”

With a big show, he got off the couch and followed her out of the room. It had the desired effect. She gave him a small, wry smile that he’d come to enjoy wheedling out of her when she was getting too serious for his taste. “What’s on your mind?” he asked.

Elizabeth waited to answer him until they’d taken a few short steps out to the nearest balcony. “I wanted to know how you’re holding up,” she said. “You’ve had a rough day.”

“You did too,” he pointed out, “and you didn’t get to play Indiana Jones.”

She laughed a little. “Yes, Rodney’s reiteration of events was surprisingly generous to you,” she replied. “I suppose that’s because he was the comic sidekick instead of the red-shirt.”

John resisted the urge to point out that she wore red every day of the week. Instead, he crossed his arms over his chest and said, “Yeah, I guess.”

Elizabeth turned around and leaned against one of the large posts that held the balcony up. “You were quiet during Zelenka’s briefing on… what happened.”

_What happened._ It was as succinct a way as any to describe her day. A Wraith dart appeared, she sent three jumpers in the air, and only two returned. “Markham and Smith were good men,” he replied.

“I know,” Elizabeth said. “I didn’t know them as well as I should have, but I did know that much.”

He thought of the lost ZPM, and the other part of her news, that three hive ships were on their way. “I can’t help the feeling that we’re facing our deaths in two weeks.”

“John,” she said, and he finally looked at her. Her face was half in shadow. “There’s still hope.”

They stared at each other for a long time. Finally he shook his head. “You’ve changed a lot, you know that?”

“What do you mean?”

He licked his lips. “You’re a lot more sure of yourself than you used to be.”

She smiled briefly. “I’ll take that as a compliment, I suppose,” she replied. “I’ll see you in the morning.”

John watched her go, and then looked out to the sea again. A storm was brewing a long way off, but it would pass them by. The other impending storm would not. It was coming for them, but as long as Elizabeth was there, these people would fight. In a way as strange as his connection to the city around him, John could feel his death coming, but he would follow Elizabeth Weir, even if she were to order him to his grave.

* * *

In the middle of the night, John and Elizabeth were standing in the checkout line at a grocery store not too far from her house, having purchased quite a lot of chocolate on a whim. As they stood there waiting for the cashier to get to them, they stared at the rack of tabloids. Most featured the usual celebrity foibles, but Elizabeth was startled to see her own face on a few of them.

John reached over the conveyer belt and pulled one of them up to see the whole headline. “Did we get married last week?” he asked.

“Not that I remember,” she replied. “The only time I’ve been that drunk on this trip was before the gate was disclosed.”

He looked at another one. “I think this is a sign that we need to get back to Atlantis,” he said. “This one says I’m leaving you because you’re pregnant with an Asgard baby.”

Elizabeth looked down at her stomach. “And here I thought that upset stomach was because of the Thai food.”

The line moved forward, and the teenager working the cash register started scanning their items. Then he looked up at them and said, “Wait, are you—”

“Yes,” John interrupted.

“Wow!”

“Well said,” Elizabeth replied.

Once they were safely out of the store, they walked across the street to a coffeehouse Elizabeth remembered well. She’d spent many a late night there studying when she was an undergrad. Their agents weren’t far behind, of course, and staked out the place before letting them go in.

Inside, the televisions were playing CNN. “Elizabeth Weir’s much anticipated testimony,” one of the anchors was saying, “led to some surprisingly emotional stories today. She and her second-in-command, John Sheppard, have made no secret of their relationship, but today we learned that fifteen months ago, the situation in Atlantis became so dire that she had, as she put it, sent him to his death. We were given no indication of how he survived this apparent suicide mission, but in recounting the story before the committee, Dr. Weir was visibly shaken.”

“Well, can you blame her?” the other anchor asked. “I’m sure she’d be upset about sending anyone into a situation like that, but it must have been even harder, given how close she and Colonel Sheppard are.”

“Time for a commercial break,” said the first anchor, “but first, some photographs of the day.”

There was a picture of her being sworn in, her right hand raised and her sleeve sliding down a little to reveal her cast. Then came some pictures of the committee members, one of Jordan leaning over to say something to her, and finally three pictures of her and John hugging during the recess, from different angles. The station went to commercial, and a waitress came up to them. The woman looked at them curiously, but didn’t say anything about who they were. She simply asked for their order.

A few minutes later, they were sipping at their coffee—hers a cappuccino, his black—and Elizabeth said, “I think there’s something we need to talk about.”

John sighed and set his coffee down. “Yeah.”

“John, if you stay with me, your life is going to be wrapped up in mine,” she said. “There’s no two ways around it. As long as we’re in the spotlight, people are going to consider you a political asset or a political liability.”

“Which am I to you?”

The uncertainty in his voice made her heart sink. She reached across the table and took his hand. “Neither,” she said, shaking her head. “This may take me a couple tries to get right, so just sit still till I’m finished, okay?” He nodded, and Elizabeth continued, “This isn’t what you signed up for. I shouldn’t have said it the way I did the other day, but there will always be some who try to score cheap points by making me out to be incompetent, and they’ll use you to those ends.”

He started to protest, but she shook her head. “Please, just let me get through this,” she said. “I love you, John. I have absolutely no question of this in my mind. But this isn’t the life you’re used to, and you shouldn’t have to get used to it if you don’t want to. I’m deeply in love with you, but if you want out of this, I’ll understand.”

“Elizabeth,” he said, speaking slowly, “I’m not leaving you.”

She nodded, feeling tension in her shoulders release. “Thank you.”

They didn’t speak for a little while, until another mention of Elizabeth on television jarred them out of silence. “You don’t have to be anywhere early tomorrow, do you?” John asked.

“Nope,” she said. “We can sleep in.”

“You mean I can sleep till six?” he teased.

Elizabeth smiled widely. “ _Past_ six.”

* * *

Over the next few days, the hearings went up and down, and Sam Carter wasn’t at all sure what the committee was getting at. She asked Dr. Weir at some point if she had any idea, and the diplomat didn’t have any answers for her.

General Hammond’s testimony went well. There was no real complaint against his leadership at any point in his career. Jack’s testimony on the following day, however, couldn’t have gone any worse. Jack had never been a man of great patience, and when confronted for following orders ten years earlier on the first mission through the Stargate, he got hostile. Elizabeth Weir sat next to him as a sign of support of him, but if her presence did any good, Sam didn’t want to know how bad it would have been without her.

Only one member of the committee commended Jack on his years of service and the number of times he’d saved the planet. The rest asked variations of the same theme: what had given him the right to take a nuclear weapon with him on a first encounter mission? It didn’t seem to matter that he was acting under orders. The men who’d given that order were all dead now, and Jack was the only one who could answer these questions, whether for himself or for his superiors. It was a culture Sam just didn’t understand.

Her own testimony had started that day. She wasn’t looking forward to going back the next morning. Things had not gone well.

Daniel was supposed to be meeting her for drinks that evening, but he’d called to cancel after she’d already gotten to the bar. Sam decided she’d just have a drink and go home, but then a familiar man walked up next to her and ordered a Jack Daniels. “I don’t know if you remember me,” he said, “but I’m Toby Ziegler. White House Communications Director.”

“Vaguely,” she replied. “Sam Carter. Though you probably know that.”

“I do, in fact,” Toby said. “You’re just about the smartest person in the world right now.”

They shook hands, and Toby sat down on the bar stool next to her. “I didn’t think you were going on the stand till tomorrow,” he began.

“Daniel’s took less time than it was scheduled to,” Sam explained. “He said that death is a relative state, and the whole thing took on a very confusing philosophical bent.”

Toby smiled. “I saw part of that. The part where Michaels was asking how many times Dr. Jackson had died, and he said three or four.”

Sam shook her head. “It’s no wonder his book’s number one on the bestseller lists.”

“Not jealous of that?”

She sipped from her drink. “He’s been dead more often than I have. I can live with him getting rich off this.”

Toby laughed a little and shook his head. “Speaking of your testimony today,” he said.

“I know,” she said. “It was bad. I lost my cool a little.”

“You could say that,” he replied. “I imagine you’re not used to people questioning you like that.”

“No, not at all,” Sam said. “It’s surreal. I said what I said in that interview because I was ordered to. And when you get right down to it, I agreed with the order. I didn’t feel it was appropriate or necessary to allow the disclosure of the existence of aliens at the time. I still don’t feel it was appropriate—”

“But you followed the president’s orders anyway.” Toby ran his finger around the rim of his glass. “I think that’s what people are more afraid of than anything else in the military. People who disagree with their orders but carry them out anyway.”

“What am I supposed to do, tell the president no?”

“I don’t know, Colonel. I don’t know.” He looked at their reflections in the mirror behind the bar. “You’re a soldier, trained to say ‘Yes, sir’ and do what you’re told. But you’re also a scientist, trained to question what you see. That must be quite a conflict.”

“It can be,” Sam said, feeling oddly contemplative. “I think the soldier usually wins, too.”

“How’s that?”

She exhaled slowly. “Ten years ago, I could have been on the first Stargate mission,” she replied. “I tried to convince myself that it was because I’m a woman—there weren’t any women on that first trip, and only one civilian—but I’ve always known that wasn’t really what happened.”

“Did it have something to do with nuclear weapons?” Toby asked, in a tone that said he knew exactly what the problem had been.

Sam nodded. “I told General West that it was wrong to take a nuke along on a peaceful, exploratory mission,” she said. “He was mad at me. He told me my complaint had been noted, and the next day I was cut from the mission.”

The bartender came by, and Toby ordered another drink. “Does General O’Neill know about this?”

“I think so,” Sam replied. “We’ve never talked about it.”

Toby let out a short laugh. “You worked together for how many years, and you never talked about the fact that he had no problem traipsing however many light years across the galaxy with a bomb in tow, and you weren’t there because you’d legitimately disagreed?”

“No,” she said. “You don’t have that conversation with your commander.”

“I don’t understand how you can function in an environment like that,” Toby said. “You think I don’t tell the president when I think he’s done something wrong?”

“It’s not just disagreeing with him,” Sam argued. “We both went to the Academy, but we were just far enough apart that we’re practically from different branches of the service. He’s from the end of the time when the solution to every problem the Air Force came across was a mushroom cloud. My father was like that too. If I were ten years older, I might have agreed with him. I might not have had a problem with taking a nuke as a contingency plan.”

“This is where you lose me,” Toby replied. “Some things are just wrong, no matter what your background is.”

“People don’t come back from the dead, either.”

Toby blinked twice. “Well, you got me there.”

Sam shook her head. “I guess what’s confusing me most about this is that Congresswoman Wyatt got Dr. Weir out of answering embarrassing questions about her personal life, and then she went after General O’Neill like that. I figured she would have been on one side or the other.”

“It’s a woman thing.” Sam looked at him incredulously. “You know how it goes,” he said. “One day they’re calmly writing the definitive text on wormhole theory, and the next day they’re blowing up stars.”

Chagrined, she tapped her fingernails on the bar and bit the inside of her cheek. “You know,” she said, “you blow up one star—”

“And everyone expects you to walk on water.”

She looked at him, and he raised his glass. “To the many faces of Stargate Command.”

Sam lifted her glass and clinked it against his. “Cheers.”


	11. Chapter 11

There was no way Elizabeth and John were going to be able to stay on Earth long enough to get the full report of the investigating committee. But when the hearings drew to a close, most people were agreed that overall, the SGC and its personnel had fared well enough. There was a good possibility that they were about to get serious Senate oversight, but operations were starting back up again, and no one was going to have to spend time in prison.

In the midst of all this, December had rolled around, and the White House was filled with garland and trees and light. It was one of the most magical things Elizabeth had seen in a long time. She was going to miss the snow once she was back in Atlantis, but it was one of the few things she would miss about Washington.

A few days before they were scheduled to leave, the president called them into the White House, ostensibly as a final thank-you and farewell. However, Ron Butterfield was in the room when they arrived, along with the head of military security that was provided for the rest of the Stargate personnel.

“Elizabeth, John, come on in,” the President said when Debbie opened the door for them. “Ron tells me he has news.”

They came in and sat down on one of the sofas. Travis and another agent followed them in as well. “Ron, why don’t you fill them in on all this?”

Ron nodded. “Dr. Weir, Colonel Sheppard, we’ve apprehended two suspects in the shooting incident two weeks ago,” he said. “Both of them have been charged for their involvement. They, along with the shooter, were members of a radically right-leaning organization which had published some rather violent threats following the disclosure of the Stargate. These people were sending death threats to UN ambassadors for several months. You can only imagine how people with such isolationist tendencies would react to the idea of the Stargate.”

Elizabeth let out a long breath, nodding slowly. “So it wasn’t targeting any one of us?”

“No, ma’am,” Travis answered. “They were targeting you. Seems their leader is something of a misogynist. He called it a blight on mankind that you were in charge of the Atlantis expedition. He was encouraging members to take you down. I guess you were a two-for-one deal.”

“It’s fairly obvious from the statement we got from one of the suspects that the leader of this group is unstable to some degree,” Ron put in. “We’re hoping to have him in custody by the end of the day, as we have reason to believe that he supplied the shooter with the weapon as well.”

Her skin started to crawl as she thought about it. “Well, I suppose this rules out disgruntled former students,” she remarked.

Bartlet got up abruptly, and Elizabeth quickly followed. “Elizabeth, John, come here a minute,” he said. “Could you give us the room, guys? Thanks.”

The security personnel filed out, and the three who remained walked up to the desk. “I told you before we disclosed all this that your lives would never be the same again,” the president said. “I’m sorry that it all got turned upside down so soon.”

“Sir, please don’t apologize,” Elizabeth replied. “It’s not like our work in Atlantis is any safer than this.”

He nodded. “When you’re back on Earth from now on, you’re going to be protected by the Diplomatic Service, at least until they and the Secret Service have determined that there’s no longer a credible threat. But I wouldn’t bet on that. I suggest that you make the most of it.”

“Yes, sir,” John said. “Is there anything else?”

“Yeah, I’ve got something for you.”

He reached over the desk to pick up a box while Elizabeth said, “Sir, you really don’t have to.”

“You may change your mind when you know what this is, Elizabeth,” he replied. Then he popped open the box, and inside lay two pens. “The last two pens from my final bill signing. It was actually the budget for Atlantis. You’re both getting a raise, by the way. One of them dotted the I in Josiah, the other one crossed the Ts in Bartlet. You two can fight over them outside.”

John took the box from the president and snapped it shut. “Thank you, sir,” he said.

They started to go, but then Bartlet stopped Elizabeth before she could leave. John headed to the outer office, and Elizabeth lingered. “Mr. President?”

“Elizabeth, there’s something I need to tell you about your father,” he said.

“Sir,” she interrupted, “I think I know what you did. I can’t say that you should have, but… thank you for doing it.”

“I may be in his position someday,” the president replied. “I don’t know what this disease will do to my mind before I die. But when the time comes, I want to be able to say goodbye to my daughters. I wanted your father to be able to do the same.”

Elizabeth nodded. “Thank you.”

* * *

As promised (or threatened, depending on whom one asked), John and Elizabeth had been invited to the Bartlet administration’s final Christmas party. Being the last, it was a bigger event than most people seemed to have anticipated, judging from the comments that John heard throughout the evening from people who had been to the annual function before. Elizabeth had not, but John never would have guessed it from how she behaved.

Her red silk dress covered her from her shoulders to the floor, but the entire back and a very high slit up the side were beaded chiffon instead. She sparkled as she moved, and even the cast on her right arm didn’t make her look any less amazing. Not that John was completely unbiased in that department.

At some point in the evening, Lord John Marbury had collected around himself a group of women, including Donna and Abbey and Elizabeth, and their boyfriends and husbands all stood off at a distance watching them. “You know, he still makes me nervous,” the president commented.

John set his champagne aside and adjusted his gloves. This was, after all, a white-tie affair, and his would-be competition was the Earl of Sherbourne. “Gentlemen, if you’ll excuse me,” he said, “I’m going to remind my date of who she came in with.”

He grabbed her hand as he walked by, pulling her off to the dance floor. He suspected that she might have smacked him if she hadn’t been giggling so much. Once she had stopped laughing sporadically, they were too busy and too comfortable dancing for her to smack him as he deserved. John did notice, however, that some of the men he’d been standing with eventually followed his lead.

They left before the party was really over, heading back to Elizabeth’s house and eating junk food on the couch in their formal clothes. “You know,” John said, digging into Elizabeth’s bowl of goldfish crackers, “Carson told both of us to try to get some rest on this trip.”

“And once again you defy doctor’s orders,” Elizabeth replied, a little too gleefully.

“This was all your fault,” he said, leaning in to kiss her neck.

She elbowed him. “I’m not giving you the last of my chocolate milk, John.”

“I don’t want it,” he replied. He draped one arm over her stomach and started surreptitiously tugging open the zipper that ran up the side of her dress. “I swear, sometimes you eat like a pregnant woman.” Then his eyes widened and he said, “You’re not, are you?”

“Hey, even Asgard babies need nutrients.”

John grabbed the bowl from her and almost tossed it to the coffee table, pouncing and pinning her to the sofa. He started tickling and she shrieked; he started kissing and she moaned.

He was hovering over her, and she touched his face. “We leave for Atlantis the day after tomorrow,” she said. “Then it’s eighteen days aboard the _Daedalus_. Think we can take our doctor-ordered vacation there?”

John nuzzled her neck. “The last time we were on the _Daedalus_ together,” he said, “we ended up almost dying.”

“Yes, but,” Elizabeth said, “I’m sure we can manage not to almost fly into a star this time.” He kissed the hollow of her throat, and she hummed contentedly. “John,” she said, “I have a very comfortable bed upstairs. Why don’t we take advantage of that?”

He looked at her, and she smiled for him. When she gave him that look, there was only one response he could give.

“Whatever you want, Elizabeth.”

* * *

The _Daedalus_ arrived back at Atlantis without incident, and John and Elizabeth were beamed into the gate room, their luggage sent to Elizabeth’s quarters. Rodney, Teyla, and Ronon were there to greet them. “So,” Elizabeth said, once the pleasantries were dispensed with, “get me up to speed.”

They started up the stairs to the control room and her office, and Teyla said, “I understand that you were given the weekly reports while you were on Earth, but I did take the liberty of summarizing the events of the last few weeks into a single file.”

The Athosian woman held out a tablet computer, and Elizabeth said, “Let John take it, if you could.” Teyla handed it to John obediently, and then glanced down at Elizabeth’s arm. She said nothing about the cast, though she looked curious.

“Ronon,” Elizabeth said, “anything of interest to report?”

He shrugged, his arms crossed. “It’s been pretty quiet here,” he replied. “Hoping we can get off-world again soon.”

“Well, we shut down all nonessential operations as a gesture to the people who might want to shut us down to show that we’re not unreasonable people,” John said. At Elizabeth’s amused look and Ronon’s slightly puzzled expression, he added, “Elizabeth probably could have explained that better.”

“Possibly,” she said. “Rodney?”

“Thought you’d never get to me,” Rodney said. “We found something quite fascinating in one of the underwater levels. Zelenka and I haven’t quite figured out what it is yet, but did you break your arm?”

Elizabeth laughed lightly. “Yes,” she said. “The cast should be coming off very soon.”

“How’d you break it?” Ronon asked.

“I didn’t, actually,” Elizabeth replied. “John did.”

Teyla couldn’t quite conceal her amusement at this. “Is this a… sign of affection among your people?”

“ _No_ ,” John said before Elizabeth could respond. “We were being shot at, and I was covering her.”

“No, we were being shot at, and you knocked me over to cover me.”

“Wait, wait, wait, wait, you were being shot at?” Rodney demanded.

“Yeah, I thought you said your country wasn’t at war with anyone on your planet,” Ronon said.

“The country isn’t,” Elizabeth replied. “Some of its citizens are always at war with someone, though.”

Rodney opened his mouth again, but Elizabeth held up her hand. “We’ve got a lot of stories to tell, but they don’t all have to be told right now,” she said. “Right now, John and I both need to catch up on the last few weeks, all right?”

They’d reached Elizabeth’s office by then, and the group began to disperse. John headed off to see Major Lorne, Rodney went to his lab, and Ronon went wherever he pleased. Teyla lingered, though, and once she and Elizabeth were alone, she said, “Dr. Weir, your father—”

“He’s dead,” Elizabeth replied. “He died the day after we got to Earth.”

“But you were able to speak with him before he died?”

“Yes.”

Teyla nodded slowly. “I will light a candle for him tonight, as a guide for his spirit.”

Elizabeth smiled briefly. “Thank you, Teyla.”

She sank into her desk chair as the other woman left. Little by little, it was getting easier to talk about her father’s death, and she suspected that eventually she’d be able to talk about his life more easily too.

John came back a few minutes later with Lorne, and the major offered to fill them in on the details of the last few weeks. Elizabeth knew she had an enormous amount to catch up with, but she asked them to step outside for a few minutes while she reabsorbed her surroundings alone. She adjusted a few things here and there, and she smiled.

It was good to be home again.

* * *

_Washington, D. C.  
Eight years later_

“Mommy, I’m freezing!”

Five-year-old Josiah Sheppard was hopping back and forth from one foot to the other, and Elizabeth rolled her eyes. He had his father’s irrepressible energy. “Come here, Siah,” she said, and he walked up to her as she squatted down. “If you’d leave your scarf on and keep your coat buttoned,” she continued, fixing both scarf and coat, “you wouldn’t be having this problem.”

“Daddy’s not wearing a coat.” Siah was almost pouting.

“Daddy’s insane,” Elizabeth replied.

“I heard that, your Worshipfulness,” John said, coming up behind her.

Elizabeth stood and let him kiss her cheek. “This isn’t my beatification, John,” she said. Then the baby in John’s arms leaned away from her father to kiss her mother’s cheek too. “You being good for Daddy?” Jill just babbled happily.

“Where’d Peter get off to?” John asked, looking around.

“I thought he was with you,” Elizabeth replied. “Oh, this is not a good way to start.”

There was a small number of people mulling around, but it should have been easy to spot a child anyway, unless he were hiding. She turned toward one end of the long corridor and heard someone running. A few seconds later, their six-year-old came flying around a corner. “Peter!” John called. “Walk.”

Peter slowed to a more dignified pace, but just barely. “Mom, can Siah and I play here every day?” he asked.

“This is the Capitol building,” she replied. “Congress meets here.”

“So…”

“Maybe when Congress isn’t mad at me.”

Peter looked up at her with wide blue eyes. Being adopted, he obviously looked nothing like either her or John, but he’d picked up almost all of John’s repertoire of facial expressions. “Why would they be mad at you?” he asked.

“Oh, for a multitude of reasons, sweetheart,” Elizabeth replied.

Her aide came up then with a leather-bound folder. “Ma’am, I have your speech for you,” she said.

“Thank you, Callie,” Elizabeth answered. “Everything’s in order?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

Outside, the Marine Corps band started playing “Columbia, the Gem of the Ocean”. Elizabeth took a deep breath, starting to feel a little nervous. John touched her back. “Do you need to walk a bit?” he asked.

“No, I’m fine.” She buttoned up her coat. “It’s cold in here.”

“That’s what we get for having Inauguration Day in January instead of a warm month,” John replied.

“It used to be in March,” she said. “I’m not sure when or why they changed it, but I think it had something to do with Teddy Roosevelt.”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” said another voice. Elizabeth turned around and smiled at the sound of Jed Bartlet starting another foray into useless trivia. “Franklin Delano, not Teddy, and it was because it didn’t take as long to count votes anymore, and didn’t take as long for delegates of the electoral college to convene.”

Josiah and Peter started running toward the man as soon as they saw him, but Elizabeth called, “Boys!” They stopped obediently and let Jed come up to them. He was looking remarkably well, though his hair was fully silver now and he used a cane almost all the time. Elizabeth wasn’t overly concerned about the boys doing any damage, though, as they visited the Bartlets frequently and they were used to Jed’s health these days.

“Did you bring us anything, Grandpa Jed?” Siah asked.

“Abbey might have something for you later,” he replied. “I only brought something for your mother now.”

The boys walked back to their parents with Jed, who held something out to Elizabeth as he approached. “I believe you requested this,” he said.

She took the Bible from him and opened it, finding his name written in the inside cover. “Thank you, sir.”

“It’s an honor that you’d use it to be sworn in on,” he said. “Now to get you to call me by my first name like the rest of your family.”

“You’ve been ‘sir’ to me for twenty-four years,” she said. “Don’t expect that to change overnight.”

“Do I have to call you Madam President, though?”

She smiled. “I’ve still got a few more minutes before that’s official.”

“How about you, John?” Jed asked, smiling. “How’s it feel to be the first First Husband?”

John narrowed his eyes. “I think I’m going to have people call me Colonel, Jed,” he said. “Otherwise, it feels like a pretty normal day. Jill’s already tried to choke me with my tie.”

“Speaking of your tie, John,” Elizabeth said, “where is it?”

“In my pocket,” he replied. “Jill tried to eat it, and I think she managed to stain it.”

“Baby, how did you do that?” Elizabeth said to Jill, who grinned, dimples and all. “Well, Josh isn’t around to steal a tie from. He’s already down in the audience. Put your scarf and overcoat back on. Maybe people won’t notice.”

“And if they do?”

“Then you and Jill will be responsible for the international downfall of tie manufacturing.”

“That seems a little extreme.”

“Hey,” Elizabeth said, “John Kennedy didn’t wear a hat at his inauguration, and the popularity of men’s hats plummeted.”

“You’re a wealth of useless knowledge,” John replied, handing the baby over to her while Callie approached with his coat and scarf. He looked at Jed. “And I’m pretty sure I can blame you for that.”

“Probably,” Jed replied, chuckling a bit.

Once he got his coat on, he took Jill back and said, “I’m going to take the kids down to our seats now. Might be best for you to do your first processional without the starting lineup of Manchester United tagging along.” He kissed her cheek. “See you in a bit.”

Elizabeth’s staff started to gather as John left with the children, and Jed touched her arm. “I should get going too,” he said. “But I wanted to say that I’m proud of you, Elizabeth. I’ve always known you’d do great things. Atlantis won’t be the end of that for you.”

She smiled and opened her mouth to respond, but another group was approaching her, led by a tall woman in billowing black robes. Evelyn Baker Lang shook Elizabeth’s hand and said, “Well, it seems we’re making history today. Are you ready, Madam President-Elect?”

“No time like the present, Madam Chief Justice.”

Elizabeth looked at Jed, who put one hand in his pocket and said with a smile, “Hail to the Chief.”


End file.
